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by Roberto Ontiveros


Three months after my father’s funeral, I started to wonder whatever became of my 8th grade crush Demi Mora.

“Demi” was, of course, not the girl’s real name.  Her Lanza Middle School ID card said Diana Racine Mora, which is a pretty nice name if you ask me, but this girl thought she looked like the actress Demi Moore, or someone told her that when trailers for The Seventh Sign came out and she soon got a nickname.

I never thought Diana looked like Demi Moore and never lied to her that she did despite how much that would have been to my advantage.  When I was a kid lying to people made me feel like a criminal.  Thankfully, by the time Indecent Proposal and Stiptease came out I was no longer speaking to her. 

Demi Mora preferred her fake name despite thinking she also looked like Jami Gertz, or that  “Elaine” character from Seinfeld too.  I could see “Elaine” a bit.  I did not dash her dreams about her celebrity self-regard, that she looked much more like her mother who looked like the singer Gloria Estefan – and how could this be an insult?  But it must have been because she preferred Demi Moore or the dark-haired lady who played a reptilian space leader on that NBC mini-series V, or Andie MacDowell; so I kept my mouth shut about the whole thing. “Demi Mora” did not look at all like Demi Moore.  I would have been happy to tell her if she did.

. . .

Since my Dad died, and my Mom moved in with my sister and her kids, and I was out of work and out of a relationship, I had no problem accepting the job of getting my childhood home ready for rental.

I have been going through boxes of saved stuff that I know I should throw.  I can trash most of the report cards and second place or GOOD TRY ribbons, no problem; school pics and hard to find Scratch ’N Sniff stickers, yeah, I’ll keep those and they won’t take up more than a MEAD folder to store. That was my routine.  Then I go for a walk.  Then I drink.

Deep into my routine of clean up and constitutional I kept walking past the Mora house and started to wonder about what looked like some serious neglect.  The dead grass and the flecked off paint.  I was surprised by the exterior suggestion of inner squalor.  I used to think that Demi and her family were loaded, which shows you how broke everyone was all the time.  Demi’s Dad had some kind of businessman job or he wore a suit and it was supposed to be big deal impressive.  But my Dad wore a suit too when he worked as the Shoe Department manager at Joe Brand or when he sold insurance or when he sold cars for that one week, so to me the big deal was all about the pretense that the Mora family seemed to affect.  Demi’s Mom did not have to work, so she fixed up the place with mirrors and vases; there was a den that was all bronze and wicker and blown glass, this sunken floor area of trinkets and objet d’art on display, and they had a maid who was about as old as Mama Mora, who looked like she could have just been related to them and who might have been a cousin too now that I think about it.  The family went on a winter trip and a summer trip and were members of the McAllen Country Club, which was all golf and sandwiches really and right by La Plaza Mall, so not that far from Mexico either and the most Mexican looking parts of McAllen.  The Mora home seemed to have a lot of fancy booze on display.  My family did not have any booze in the house ever.  Against our religion I guess, or my Mom’s Apostalic background.  My Dad adopted an (in the house at least) abstinence when he got with Mom. The first of many refusals of familiarity for my old man. Dad grew up Catholic but converted for my Mom, and in the end our family attended one of those nondenominational mini-mega churches that would always have guest preachers and we did communion but it was seriously Welch’s grape juice.  Back then drinking was a sign of class to me, and Demi would tell me about these dinner parties her family threw that she would sit in on to make me feel like I was missing out on some kind of high society down here in lowrider land, but really everything Demi bragged about was a TV joke, like she was describing a Dynasty episode.  Materially speaking, I have to say, I was pretty jealous.  The Moras had a big screen TV and they had that Porsche and Demi’s Daddy made like 70 grand a year, which sounds like nothing now, but which made him pretty well off in a the Rio Grande Valley where having HBO in 1982 made people think you were rich, and if you had a laserdisc player in 1988 it was like you were a big showoff.  Demi’s aspirations were all based on movies like St. Elmo’s Fire and Oxford Blues, those catalog ambitions to the preppie look and the occasional John Hughes friendly dip into New Wave attire à la Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark.  She wanted to play tennis or said she did, and invited me to the McAllen Country Club a few times.  I never went and the invitation was extended to some other guy named Paul.

. . .

Nine months into being back in my childhood home, and asking myself why I was still here and was still walking past Demi’s old home, I was struck with a kind of impulse to walk up to the door of her old home and ring the bell. This was not any idea that made sense.  I knew from Google searching all variants of Diana Racine Mora, that her father was dead, and that she had married someone in another city and changed her name to Frost. 101 Lucite really looked ruined right now, like no one could live there.

The mouth of the mailbox was open and letters were there ready for someone to take them if so inclined.  Dry dead grass but there was a car in the driveway; covered in a black car cover.  It was mid-morning enough that if anyone had to leave for work the car should be gone,  and I was so curious.  I walked up to the veiled vehicle and lifted the black car cover and recognized the maroon almost sugar ant-colored Porsche right away.  Same car that Demi had been promised as 14-year-old she could drive when she got her license.  My heart raced when I thought that Demi Mora could still be here in her childhood home – just like I was back in my old childhood home.                                                                     

I approached the sliding glass door by the kitchen I knew so well and got a look at myself in the reflection.  I remembered how much Demi liked that I, at fourteen, resembled the lead singer from Depeche Mode.  I did, it was true, so scrawny and with that big sexy nose and black hair, but that was then.  I looked like a demonic Richard Gere today.

I rang the bell and heard a little dog yelp and then silence as a door closed and the little dog was likely put away.  I rang the doorbell once more, and stood straight like I was really supposed to be here before this door and at this hour.                                                             

The woman who opened the door was wearing black biker shorts and a sports bra like some fantasy I would have had in the 8th grade, when gym class erotics colored my daydreams.  The woman had black hair with a few white wisps along her bangs, indicating that she was a contemporary and did not bother dying her hair.  She had a very familiar face that I could not place.  Could this woman actually be Demi? Demi Mora after some very specific Mia Sara-centered surgery?  Mia Sara, the ingenue from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was yet another actress that Demi believed she resembled.  But I was the only one she ever dared share this information with. The reason she was quiet about the Mia Sara thing was because there was another girl in our grade who really actually did, no joke, look like the actress and was just as innocent looking as her “Lili” character in Legend, right before “Lili”  meets up with Tim Curry’s “Darkness” character and has that black lipstick dance with her shadow self.  The true Mia Sara lookalike was a girl named Claudia Sanchez who I really believed was playing up the act of a kind of shy beauty that might make the resemblance more obvious, like she was in the know on her attractiveness and exploiting it.  Then one day when I heard her talking to our teacher in Spanish, it dawned on me finally that the girl was an ESL (English as a Second Language) student and was very likely uncomfortable talking in class.

I said hello and felt my face smile in honest cheer.  I was about to just start to lie, just make up a story about seeing an ad for a car for sale on this street and say that I thought this was must be house, but upon seeing the inside of the Mora home, it’s tan and oak color scheme, the bark brown carpet still there and evermore threadbare, I opted for a very basic honesty.  “I know this might sound like a joke but a girl I used to know lived here in this very house like twenty-five years ago and I am feeling this certainty that she is still here.”  I said this to the woman at the door, then I said my name and that I was very close at one point to Demi Mora, and I said that her real name was Diana Racine Mora but she might go by Diana Frost these days, unless she is divorced and then I don’t know.  I made sure to signify that I did not know much.  “I don’t know if you know where she has gone to, but I recognized the car out here and thought … Hey, I just had to make sure.”

The woman’s eyes widened but no lines appeared on her forehead.  She looked still and like she could not move her face.

Then she started to nod and there was even what looked like sudden recognition.  When she said my name I knew that this woman was somehow Demi.  My heart started beating faster and I felt something close to fear but subsided when the woman at the door invited me in.

“Oh my God, Bob, I have not seen you  in …,” and now the woman placed her left hand over her eyes as if closing them to truly consider the years, adding: “Well, you might know better than I how long it has been.”  She walked over to the leather couch to sit, not looking at me at all now, as if she could not meet my eyes and speak her words at the same time.

I was shaking my head a little, smiling though because this all seemed like a joke.

I apologized for interrupting her during her workout, and she shook her head in what seemed like some sly mockery of my obvious unconcern for interrupting anyone: “These are just my clothes, Bob.  The clothes I am wearing here, trying on old items from … Jesus, from back when we used to talk on the phone all those hours all those years ago.”

Standing by the bronze hat rack, not yet even trying to get comfortable in a room I had been in perhaps twenty times, I nodded at the information that seemed obvious and true and also dizzying to me.

“I was thinking about you, you know, all week.” she said.  “Do you believe it?”

Now this felt like a genuine put-on and I said: “Why and just how … yeah, I want to call you, Demi, but something is holding me back.”

“Those notes, Bob, all of those dang notes we sent each other in Mrs. Malta’s English class.  When we were kids we left notes all the time, and then all the phone calls. I was looking at my old journal and it seems I liked you a lot but that you liked me much more.”

This was the truth, but that did not mean this was the true Demi.

The woman went on: “Everyday we wrote notes and you … you even wrote poetry sometimes, sometimes even about me, and I still have all that, of course.  So, I was thinking about you when I found the notes, just yesterday, just last week … I was reading the notes over and over thinking about what you would look like, or really who you would look like now. You looked like different people I remember.  I have two pictures of you my Mom took when you visited.  You look like a singer I don’t listen to anymore and an actor I have not thought of in like twenty years.”

This was approaching a mad plane of compliment and conspiracy.  But I liked how this woman was talking to me and responded: “You know … you don’t … look like what I recall at all.”

“I had work done,” the woman said, very plainly, “and I will have more work done – it will take a while.  It will take … I don’t know … another three or four years to be okay with what I am.  So it is not quite my life’s work.”

My eyes went right to the bar.

“Ah, I see where you are looking,”  Demi said and started walking over to the setup of decanters and high end Scotch.  “I drank all the time then when we were kids, more than I ever do now that I am getting healthy.  I drank on the phone with you and when you came over I drank but you never saw me drink because it was more fun you just thinking I was that kind of natural trippy-tipsy.  I have not had a drink in a while, Bobby.  Will you join me for a bourbon and water and we can understand all this together?”

The woman did not have to ask twice.  When she walked over my eyes scanned her calves for an asterisk-shaped birthmark that always caught my eye when she wore this one black skirt I loved to see her in.  I did not see the birthmark.  Although she could have had it removed, I reasoned. 

“Yeah, I will take that drink,” I said.

I was glad to have it, and was comfortable enough with it in hand that I joined the woman on the couch. When I got up to pour my second drink we moved to the kitchen area like I was getting a home tour.  My simple questions were answered simply.  Yes, of course, she had left home, but had decided that she really needed to take care of this place, now that her Dad was dead and her mother was having memory trouble.  Watching the woman take a kind of pride in her sacrifice to spruce up her childhood home, it dawned on me that there was no way this woman was really Demi Mora.  That twenty-some years since I had last seen her could not account for an increase in perhaps three inches of height.  The real Demi was always wearing pumps to seem taller, and this Demi had a pronounced widow’s peak.

The girl I knew from Mrs. Malta’s 8th grade English class, did not.

I would have really known what she looked like too, all that time looking at her in class and at night I even drew her face from memory sometimes, sitting before the TV watching Cheers go to Night Court and scribbling out her face in my spiral notebook like it was some kind of important homework.  I blushed thinking about this, and would make a point to find those pages and get rid of them now, but, yeah, I knew her face.  This very attractive grown up lady I was sitting with was not her.

But I liked that I was talking to this brazen fake, and the fact that I did seem to actually recall a secret charm.

“Did you get into an accident or something?” I asked now tipsy enough to spill into speculation and have it be forgiven as a slippy style of chat.

“Oh yeah,” the woman said, “tons of work done, so much work. I am surprised you can even recognize me,” she said with zero irony while shielding her eyes and forehead from me with her right hand.  I noticed – as she did this mock gesture of shyness, a gesture belied by the smile beneath her index; her thumb and forefinger poised a centimeter from touching as if holding an invisible cigarette – that her wrist was thin and her fingers were spidery-slender.  Demi did not have those kind of fingers, and in fact would often bite her nails and get angry at her very bones; she wanted her cheekbones to show and would suck her cheeks in when she looked at mirrors, and she wanted specific cheekbones of certain models. She used to cut pictures out of what she joked would be her future face all the time.  Her cosmetic surgery threats were obviously more about fishing for compliments than anything else, but they unnerved me, made me feel as if the girl I was staring at would soon disappear.  As I was recalling all this, the woman I was drinking with held her palm out as if to frame her chin and said: “Don’t look at my scar; it never went away,” and she seemed to really mean it.

“I see no scar,” I said and the woman touched her left ear.

She put her palm down and smiled for nine seconds.

“Good. Very good. Maybe the Mederma I use worked,” she said when she was done smiling.

I wanted to leave suddenly, feeling that I was talking to a mad woman but I also had a curiosity to know more.

I asked her what her plans were for the day and then closed my eyes as she started to tell me her chore list and her evening aspirations, which includes organizing lots of old photos now that she was sure there was a reason she was going through middle school memorabilia, and then taking in a swim at 3 p.m. I kind of tilted my head in suspicion because I knew the Mora house had no pool, and the woman corrected herself by adding: “Above ground Jacuzzi.” I smiled at her clarification, making my desire to see this version of Demi again obvious.

With my eyes closed, listing to the woman talk I really got the voice of the Demi Mora I knew so well, from hours and hours of being on the phone with this person late at night and all the time talking, this forever middle school flirting that went nowhere and was really a kind of torture that taught me I was no masochist.  Jesus, it was that same voice, but when I opened my eyes it was not the same girl: no way this was Demi.  When I opened my eyes I looked at her lips. The pout on this pretender was nothing I recalled but that did not matter.  If the real Demi ever had a problem with her lips she would certainly have no problem with them now.

“Do you have any pictures of us from when we were kids? I remember once when I was dancing with your sister in this very room, your little sister, who was like five-years-old, who wanted to dance in the room and it was like a trick you made her play so you and your mother could take pictures of me being silly and I was all upset when you showed me the secret pictures because of  my intense profile.”

“I like your nose,”she said.

“I liked it for a while too,” I said.  “It was better before it was broken, I mean,” I added, then felt wrong for not just taking the compliment from a woman who I knew had only just met me but was acting like she knew me for years.

Fake Demi shook her head, and said: “No one would know anything about your nose unless you told them, or right away they would not.  No one knows anything at all unless you tell them,” she said like this was some hard won truth.

. . .

As soon as I was back home I knew this was not Demi Mora. I sat in front of the TV and put on some Family Ties reruns from when I had a big TV crush on Justine Bateman’s “Mallory” character.  I pulled out a mostly blank spiral notebook from my Career Investigations class,  which was a home for doodles anyway, and started to draw the woman I had just visited from memory with a ballpoint pen.  I recreated the imposter’s features from my brief encounter and then looked at this fast sketch, saw the widow’s peak and the large eyes, the grin and did this woman have slightly pointed ears too or was I making her more and more elfin in some playful way of unwinding?

I pulled a few beers out of the fridge and then went online to cyber stalk the real Demi Mora like some jilted and now obsessed ex-lover in a movie. Pictures of her were around if I went for the real name: Diana Mora now Diana Mora Frost. Alive and not living on Lucite Street at all, but still in town, not very far from our old junior high, on Vine Street.

Someone rang my doorbell.  I never got visitors and did not get up to get the knock to deal with UPS I was not expecting or pizza I never ordered. I kept typing around for more information and then I wanted another drink.

Close to what should have been dinner time, I opened the door to look outside for no reason, to just stare out onto the lawn of a neighbor I never spoke to, who had likely seen me for months now and also not bothered to say hi.  I went back to the kitchen to drink water and wet my face and think about dinner options that would require little work.

  . . .

The next morning I skipped any kind of morning walk and kept on doing those easy internet searches to figure out the Demi mystery.  Her Dad died ten years back.  Some casual social media searching led to family funeral pics where I saw the real Demi who always liked to wear black anyway, here in these shots wearing black for mourning purposes: she was thicker but recognizable; this was her, the exact same way she did her hair, no doubt her, and that was her little sister too who ended up looking just like her, and the brother, who looked now so much like the dead Dad, and a very tiny lady who looked like all the adult kids in the picture.  I knew these people.  This imposture in their house was not related in any way.  I called up the landline number I still remembered later and when the woman pretending to be Demi answered I asked if I could meet her. 

“Sure thing, Bobby. You could come by anytime and meet here,” she said.  “You know where I live.”

“Yeah, I could do that and I would like that but I want to see you outside that house,” I said.

The impostor was quiet for a bit then said: “Can’t do that.  Not for a while.  I have to be here for some time.  Call it a kind of house arrest.”

“Someone came over and rang my door last night.  I did not answer.  No one ever comes by,” I said.

“Ah, that was not me,” she said. “I don’t have any idea where you live.”

“I’ll come over,” I said.

 . . .

I picked up a bottle of wine and a tallboy at the Circle store and then went into FedEx place next door to print out the most recent online pic of Demi Mora I could find. The image was thirteen years old and was taken at some marketing event where Demi dressed in what I recall she always wore: skirt and blouse and pumps in this picture.  I could see even in this picture the insecurity that she was battling. There were no other pictures of Diana Mora Frost online and I had the strong hunch that if she could get rid of this one picture she would.

The impostor I came to confront smiled when she saw me and let me in and said: “Look, Bob, if you don’t mind watching me do some chores you could sit right here at the kitchen table and I will be done in about twenty minutes and then we can talk.  For real, like even in fifteen I will be off the clock,” she said like she was a maid, and it then occurred to me that she must be in fact something very close to a domestic, someone hired to be in this house and keep it clean and keep it going.

The outside of the Mora home looked a horror of dry grass and neglect.  No one was taking care of that, but here inside things were … what? Returning? Yes, returning to something familiar for someone who would know.

I heard a familiar little doggie yelp down the hall whereupon this version of Demi palmed some kibble from a cleaned out Whip Cream tub on the shelf and walked over to placate the animal, by leading it to the bathroom where it would be gently shut away with treats.

Feeling very comfortable and free I opened the fridge and noticed how bare it was, save for a whole side shelf of Slim Fast and fruit-at-the-bottom Yoplait and a single green glass bottle of Perrier on the top shelf.  I recalled that Demi would buy these items when she was fourteen and often make a big show of purchasing fad diet foods and try to get me to compliment her purchases or tell me she did not need them. The items would just fill the fridge like trophies of body insecurity.  There was no beer, which was what I tried to stick to these days, and I realized that, of course, there was never any beer here.  This was a Scotch and soda house with the wine coolers for Mommie maybe, whiskey and wine and Gin and top shelf bourbon for Dad and for his sip-sneaking daughter.

I poured myself a glass of the booze I brought over and waited a few minutes while I saw Fake Demi motioning back and forth looking like she was vacuuming but she was not; it was some floor-roller device that just picked up lint and string or fortune cookies and confetti with no noise and no vacuum cleaner smell.

The Merlot I brought was this cheap brand I was always wanting to grab because when I was a kid I used to see the empty bottles of this brand in my friend Billy Thoren’s home, washed and sitting up on the bookshelves like decorations.  Sometimes a candle, sometimes filled with little fish tank rocks or pesos or sand like the boozeless bottles were now art.

I took another sip and then poured Fake Demi a glass.  I knew that as a kid the real Demi talked about having wine with her family, or lied about it to sound cool and sophisticated and also to disparage people who drank beer.  I was convinced that this put-on all came from TV shows where some parody of a snob and a pastiche of a lout are arguing wine versus beer like it was all some deep discussion on the virtues of varietals. Almost always when a show tries to do this joke the cliché characters exchange drinks and end up appreciating each other’s palette.

Fake Demi sipped in gratitude then exhaled and started to flick her black hair from her widow’s peak back into place as if preparing to be seen.

I held up the picture of the real Demi Mora and kind of waved in front of me slowly like I was being carted down a ticker tape parade.

“Oh, Bobby, that takes me back,” she said and leaned in as if to study the picture. I thought we were all a little dressed for some retirement party,” she said. But Debbie’s last day, right?  Let her see us looking like we are about to go clubbing, right?” She said this and laughed and then smiled like it hurt and placed her left palm over her eyes in happy fatigue, not trying to fool anyone at all.

I had no courage in my frown, and I wanted us to come clean, despite the fun I suspected could be had if I stuck with the lie.

“You’re not this woman,” I said. “This woman who when she was a girl used to write out lists of actresses she thought she looked like and ask me to rate them from like 1 to 5 who she resembled the most. You’re not this woman who when she was a girl was in ballet all elementary then quit when she was twelve and forever after blamed the lack of dancing for a perceived extra ten pounds. You are not this worried woman.”

“No, Bob. I am not that woman,” she said.

“But you work for her,” I said.

The imposter nodded, then shook her head, then clarified that she only worked for mother Mora now.  “After Mr. Mora died I started working for the family.  Doing … doing what I still do now.”

“Being a housekeeper? Or groundskeeper? Being ….”

“Being her daughter, being Demi Mora.”

“For her mother?”

“For her mother, yeah, but really for people who come by.  For you. For everyone who needs Demi to be here now. For Demi, who is a very private person these days, who does not want to be seen, who I have not seen since her sister hired me for this gig after their father’s funeral.”

I took a sip and as the woman looked at the work picture of a woman she was pretending to be.  She started trying to make her face the way Demi always did, to make her cheekbones more prominent for pictures, taking a deep breath then getting serious and stern with her lips, her full and naturally full lips, that were nothing like Demi’s despite the similar magenta lipstick that matched the color of the Porsche outside and under a black car cover.

The lovely imposter touched her widow’s peak, and I could see she was trying to push her head up and tilted it ln the way Demi would. That she had really studied her part.

“Where is Mama Mora?” I asked out of genuine concern.

“In her room, of course. Would you like to say hi?”

“No, I’m leaving.  But you could tell her that Robert stopped by.”

The pretender shook her head. “She won’t remember you.  I know she won’t.  I have brought up ‘Robert’ and ‘Bobby’ and ‘Bob’ a few times. I asked her again last night but she does not know him.  She does talk about a guy named Paul.  She calls him that ‘good guy, Paul.’ I think she would really like to talk to Paul.”

I stood and walked over to Fake Demi and said, “Paul would like to talk to her too.”

“Then let’s go in and say hi,” she said, and smiled as if a bet that would deplete no one’s personal economy had been settled.

I held the pretender’s hand and we started to walk towards a door.  I was fully prepared for there to be no one at all behind the door and that perhaps this girl was taking me to her bedroom or pulling some major prank but then she called out: “Mama, you’ll never guess who is here to see you?”

And a woman’s voice shot back, quick as if just woken from a nap, curious and glad to have a visitor and glad to have surprise. “Who, mija? Who came to see your Mama?”

My skin pricked with happy anticipation at the familiar voice of Demi’s mother.

I looked over at the caregiver for approval to commence the beneficent con and when she nodded back I said, “Mrs. Mora, it’s Paul. I am here. I came all this way to be here for you.”



BIO

Roberto Ontiveros is a fiction writer, artist, and journalist. Some of his work has appeared in the Threepenny Review, the Baffler, AGNI and the Believer. His debut collection, The Fight for Space, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press, and his second book, Assisted Living, was published by Corona/Samizdat Press, which will release two novels, Secret Animals and The Order of the Alibi, in a single volume.







Make a Wish

by Sohana Manzoor



1.

She sat in the shade of a champak tree in the garden of her host family. It was late October and slightly chilly. Not a single flower bloomed in the garden and not one spec of joy in her heart. Her six-year-old son played by an old fountain with the statue of a water nymph and she watched him unmindfully. Tears welled up in her eyes uncontrollably. There were all gone – all her four brothers. They would never hug her again, or even tease her about her cooking, or the splattered kajal around her eyes. A spasm of renewed grief shook her and she bit her lower lip to control herself. Her mouth filled with warm fluid with metallic taste. Just a little blood, she thought. But her brothers, mother, and father lay in pools of blood, and there was nothing anybody could do. All killed on the same night.

That was when she saw him. An elderly man was seated in another chair not too far away. She could have sworn that he was not there minutes ago.

“Where did you come from?” she asked, her voice croaking. “And who are you?”

“You wouldn’t recognize me, even though you’ve seen me before,” he said, a faint smile on his lips.

She looked at him suspiciously. Dressed in a plain white punjabi and white pyjamas, the man had an elegant aura about him. He wore a pair of gold rimmed glasses and his greyish beard was trimmed. He did seem familiar, but she could not recall where she had seen him.

“Do you want anything from me?” she asked. “I was a princess like Snow-White even two and a half months ago. But as she lost her mother, I have lost my entire family. Now I don’t have a country or home, I am worse off than a beggar woman…” her voice faltered.

He nodded. “You cried so much young lady that I had to come. Make a wish. What do you want?”

She laughed through her tears. “Make a wish? Like a fairy-tale?”

He nodded. “You just said you are a fallen princess, didn’t you? So, tell me Princess, what do you wish and it will come true.”

She smiled sadly. “Thanks for trying to make me happy. But I… I don’t know…”

“Is it so difficult to wish when you crying for your loved ones everyday?” He paused and nodded. “Keep thinking then. I will come back.”

When she looked for him a moment later, he was not there. Was she hallucinating or something? This was bad. Her husband often said that she was drowning in depression. But what could she do?

2.

She waited at a huge airport. Life in the past five years had been difficult. A well-wisher here, a friend there. She had been hosted by so many people in so many countries that she had lost count. Finding asylum had been difficult. Then two months ago, she had this phone call telling her that the military commander who had taken over after her father’s death had been killed in a coup. The ruling government was inviting her back to her country. She and her husband would be reinstated as honourable citizens.

Now that she was finally going home, things seemed unbelievable to her. But was there actually a home waiting for her? Her family was gone like the spoof of a smoke. A handful of cousins and tattered memories were all she had left from that past life.

She looked at her two children sitting across her in the airport lounge and her husband who was a doctor by profession. Where would they house her, she wondered. It could not be their old house where her entire family was killed, could it? The team of young men who had worked as a go-between had said that she and her family would be living in a guest house until other arrangements were made. Her husband had suggested that they could be living in his family residence which was not too far away from her late father’s house.

He leaned towards her. “We’ve two hours still. I’ll have the children eat something. Do you want anything? Orange juice?” He was never a very handsome man. But talented. And reliable. That’s what her father had wanted for his only daughter. “Marriage and love are two different things,” he had said. She looked at her father’s chosen man. Yes, he was reliable and had followed his fallen princess of a wife like a doting husband. But her heart never really warmed up to him. Not quite.

She shook her head. “I’m not hungry. You go ahead.”

He left with the children throwing a worried glance at her. These days he saw a gleam in her eyes that made her appear very different from the tearful woman he had grown used to seeing.

“Is it time for you to make your wish?” A mild voice woke her up from her reverie. A man in a plain full-sleeve grey shirt sat in the chair vacated by her son. His parted hair was slightly ruffled and he wore gold rimmed glasses.

She had not forgotten him, but she had thought that he might have been just a figment of her grief-stricken mind.

“What can I wish for?” she asked as she bent forward. Her hazel eyes shone as if they had some lurking secret not yet fully realized.

“Anything. You are the chosen one, and we thought you deserve a chance.”

“Who are we?”

The man did not reply at first. Then he said, “It’s too complicated. Just tell me what you wish.”

“And everything will change?” she scoffed.

“It will happen eventually.”

She sat up straight. “I want revenge,” she whispered.

“Revenge? On who?”

“Those who killed my family.”

“What do you want to happen?”

“ I want them to suffer. I want justice.”

The man seemed thoughtful. Then he said, “Revenge and justice are two separate things. Your wish has not taken a concrete shape yet. As long as it is not a concrete wish, it can’t really happen. Keep thinking. I will come again.”

And he was gone.

3.

The welcome reception at the airport blew her away. She had not expected so many people and such a mountain of flower bouquets. When her father had returned home after being held in the enemy prison, wasn’t it exactly like this? That was more than ten year ago. She saw many faces through her tears—welcoming her home as the lost princess, the only remaining descendant of her great father. She wept tears of sorrow and tears of joy. All this time she had wondered how not a single person protested the gruesome murder of her father. He was the leader of the nation, and he was always surrounded by people. How could they have forgotten him like that? Now she learned that there were many who loved and respected him. But they were also afraid, of their children and family even if not for themselves. And yet, there were people who protested and died for him too.

She met the new president. He was a military man but he was respectfully calling her “elder sister.” He had promised her a new house and status already. Her husband was to join as one of the directors at the nation’s most prestigious hospital.

“I assume you would want to rebuild your father’s political party? I understand that the leaders are eager for you to join and perhaps take over? Do what you need to do. You have my heartfelt support.”

The world around her started to change fast. But soon she realized that stepping into her father’s shoes would not be so simple. She was a woman and while the people saw and respected her as her father’s daughter, she was also expected to listen to the male advisers of her party. She often thought about the old man she had seen in the garden of her old friend, and later again at the airport. When would he come again? She wanted to become a great leader like her father. She wanted the nation to follow her and she would lead this poor country to become a leader in her part of the continent.

At night, she sat before her dressing table and said, “Make a wish,” she whispered. “Now I know what to wish for.”

But it would be still some more years for her to come across him again.

4.

Eight years later she stumbled across a scenario she had never envisioned. Even though the military leader helped her to reinstate, his was not a democratic government. And there were movements to overthrow him.

In her mind there was not a shred of doubt that hers was the most prominent political party in the country. But lately she had noticed that one of the other parties also gained a lot of attention. She did not understand public sentiment—how they could support a party that was at least partially involved in the murder of her family. She often wondered how the people of the country forgot history so easily. She promised herself that when she became the prime minister, she would make sure that people knew the correct history.

The election took place and the results just stunned her. Her party did not win the majority of votes. It was the other party, the man slightly younger than herself at the helm of the party, who was elected as the next PM. The people of the country called him “the uncompromising leader,” while she herself was recognized as “the autocrat’s adopted sister,” albeit her father being the most respected leader of all times. All their preparations for celebrating victory were discarded. She found herself crying in her room, alone.

“Now is perhaps the time to make your wish?” She saw him sitting in the easy chair of her bedroom. How did he get in here? She had no clue. But she sat up straight and said, “I want to become the prime minister of this country.”

The man took off his glasses and started cleaning them with a piece of cloth. “You want to be a leader?”

“First, I want the power to punish those who destroyed my family. Then yes, I would also become a leader greater than my father.”

“Hmm.”

“What? You think I can’t be a leader because I am a woman? I don’t want to be that princess who ‘lives happily ever after.’”

“There is no happily ever after,” the man said finally. “You should, however, know that such a choice will harden your heart. You will become the prime minister, but you will also cease to be the daughter your father cherished, the sister you were, or the woman who is loved by all those around her.” He paused again and looked at her fully for the first time. She realized that his golden eyes saw the past and could decipher the future.

She faltered and asked, “Is it wrong to seek justice?”

“What you seek is revenge and power. And those are the things that destroy the human soul.”

She went silent.

“I will come to you again. You must let me know then.”

5.

Years passed like the running waters of a river. She noted that the dynamics in her family had changed. Her husband stopped complaining that she was not the loving and caring wife she used to be. Her son and daughter did not seek her out to share their troubles. They sought solace elsewhere. She tried to compensate her time for her children by providing them with all kinds of comfort she could find—the best teachers, the best schools, the most modern gadgets, expensive dresses, all the best things. They were her children, her most cherished treasure after all.

Then that time came when two of her most trusted friends and allies were killed in a bomb blast. She questioned her old advisors—how come they had no inkling. Her capacity to lead the party was questioned. She felt battered and bruised.

She sat at the back of her residence on her favorite swing. She had cried so much that she felt she had nothing left.

“Where are you? I am ready to make my wish,” she almost spat out the words. “I will sacrifice everything. I have to become what even my father could not become.”

“So be it,” the faint whisper came not from too far away. The old man stood near the guava tree. Brown leaves fell around her as blessings or curse, she did not know. There was something akin to regret in his eyes. And then he disappeared.

6.

The next several years were years to rebuild what she had lost, and claim what she never had. Those around her noticed her iron-will. She took decisions that often seemed cruel, but they were necessary for her party. She discarded old friends and advisors of her father and invited new blood. There were lawyers, business tycoons, media people, all those who had something to offer. She secured funds, promised power and positions to her new supporters.

Her party rose and she started to being recognized as the formidable daughter of the old leader. Finally, her turn came and she became the prime minister.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?” she whispered to the full-length mirror of her dressing room. Once upon a time, she thought she was like Snow White. But the words she spoke were uttered by Snow White’s step-mother who wished to devour human hearts.

What she wanted was to become the most powerful of them all—something that the next election might change. So, she started strengthening her empire. She also started eliminating her enemies one by one. She would never make the mistakes her father made. She had come to rule, and she intended to rule as long as she lived. Maybe from beyond grave.

During the next election, there was nobody left to contest her. Only 17% of the voters came to the polling centre. The results showed that 82% voters came. And she became the PM again.

7.

One evening, she was getting ready for a social program when she saw her old friend sitting quietly at one corner of her dressing room. Did he have a special message for her? She was suddenly happy, but was taken aback by his words.

 “What do you mean that someone else is getting to make a wish? Am I not the chosen one?” she asked.

“Your time is up. There is only one way for you left—to go down.”

“But why?” she asked in a trembling voice. The dreams of her father had only started to come true.

“Look into the mirror. You had it designed in a way that it would show the reflection  of the daughter your father loved—a young, innocent girl yet untainted by the muck of life.”

“Are you trying to say that I am tainted now? Let me tell you I have always upheld my father’s teaching.”

“For once, do take a look at yourself. Humans most often don’t even know what they wish for.” He sounded impatient.

She closed her eyes, and slowly she turned around swirling and twirling in her pale blue jamdani saree that cost more than four lakh taka. She was seventy-two years old, but this full-length mirror hid her age well and showed a woman closer to her girlish figure at twenty-two. Yes, the saree was a bit on the expensive side, and there were reports that the country people were facing famine. But she was a queen and the queens never faced famines. Slowly, she opened her eyes and as her gaze rested on the reflection, she could only belch and stare.

A piercing scream brought her attendants to the dressing room finding the PM in total disarray.  She was trying to disentangle herself from her saree and screaming, “Bring that old man to me. That wicked old man that made me see false dreams.”

“What old man?”

“The man who was here just a few minutes ago.”

They looked at each other. “But no man came this way, Madam.”

Then someone gasped, “What happened to the mirror?”

Everybody turned to see the super-expensive full-length mirror in the PM’s room cracked from side to side.

8.

She had heard about the girl who was rising fast. A mere chit of a girl who was a student leader. Unlike her she carried no legacy. And yet, Fate had chosen her as her replacement. The only thing she could do was to wait. To wait for the girl to make her choice. She wondered what would happen to her. Would she end in the prison like many of her enemies? Or would she be killed in a coup like her father or the military general who had him murdered? How many did she herself had tortured and murdered? A cold, black fear coiled and recoiled in her heart and she felt she was falling down, down, and down.

If only she had another chance. She would make things different. She promised.

9

She woke up in a room that certainly was not her lavishly furnished bedroom. She looked around. It was an ordinary bedroom in an ordinary house. The bed she was lying in was a single bed and there was a window at the foot of the bed. She got up. She was dressed in plain cotton shalwar kameez of a light pink and white print. A table and  a chair stood in one corner. A few books were on the table along with a small flower vase with Arabian jasmines. A wooden closet also stood beside the table. Where was she? The room did seem vaguely familiar.

Gingerly, she walked toward the door when her glance fell on a mirror hanging on the wall. An oval shaped mirror with a bronze frame. But who was she seeing? A slim young woman with hazel eyes stared back at her. She wore her long, dark hair in a plait. She froze momentarily in surprise. And then she heard a long forgotten booming voice, “Tell your sons not to act like hooligans. Beating up other people’s sons makes me look bad. Where are those rascals?”

A woman’s voice followed. “They are just boys, a little too spirited perhaps. But they are your sons. Give some money to the father and say you’ll reprimand them. It will be okay.”

“Right! How many more shall I pay off? Do you know your eldest son insulted one of the senior members of the party?”

“I will talk to Salim,” said his wife in a placatory voice.

She stood rooted to the spot. That’s why the room seemed familiar. Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of being back with her parents, her brothers. She wanted to rush out and hug them, and yet she just stood there. A small seed of a thought had started to germinate in her mind already. Now that she had another chance, would she back her father and help him reprimand his sons? Or should she, like before, stand with her mother and pamper them? What had happened in that other life? The boys that used their father’s name and ran amok the streets like bandits. Looting banks, beating up opponents, raping women—what did they not do? They paid with their lives bringing down their parents and other family members as well.

And her father? Was he really the great leader she had tried to present to the world? Didn’t he also have his opponents mercilessly murdered? If he was a true leader, why was he killed like a common criminal? The searing pain of that loss maimed her in a way she had never envisioned.

She stood behind the closed door of her old room, a different thought already taking shape in her mind. Her promise was to change things. But what would she change? She was merely the daughter of the family. She would never come to the limelight if her brothers lived. Could she give up all that glory and power and live under the shadow of her brothers?

Her heart throbbed. Slowly she turned the knob of the door, ready to face her family. This time, she would make her choices consciously.



BIO

Sohana Manzoor is a writer and storyteller from Bangladesh, with a PhD in English from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her work has appeared in Bellingham Review, Eclectica, Litro, Apple Valley Review, Best Asian Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is the editor of Our Many Longings: Contemporary Short Fiction from Bangladesh, published by Dhauli Books in 2021.Currently, she resides in Vancouver, Canada.







Rohk & the [nearly] Marvelous Maurice: the Intern of Doom

by Andy Schocket & Paul Cesarini



Rodriguez barely dodged the next blast, diving behind the remains of the ticketing counter. Three more searing bolts shrieked past, gouging deep scars into the moldstone and turning the backstop into a smoking ruin. A stack of nearby museum holomaps ignited, sending half-burnt pages spiraling through the air.  He glanced up—just in time for another beam to rip past his head. The heat singed the tiny hairs on his left ear, filling his nostrils with the acrid, strangely sweet stench of burnt flesh and paper ash. He grimaced and slunk down behind the counter.  He watched as one of the smoldering maps slowly landed on the floor next to him.  Pity, he thought, those were the new ones that had just arrived that morning.  He remembered how much he liked the sheen of that paper, how the maps had all the updated exhibits, and how he was actually listed as Assistant Curator for one of them. With a sigh, he licked his fingers, snuffed out the embers, and carefully folded the map into his pocket. If he made it out of there alive, he’d order another case.

“Repent!,” Patelinu roared again.  Rodriguez heard an explosion somewhere to his left, across the Great Hall, followed by a shower of plaster hitting the floor. Whimpering floated from that direction, likely Neersif, the new employee in visitor outreach. Some first week for her, he thought.

“Are you an authorized employee of this museum?” an unfamiliar voice asked from behind him. He turned to see a dark grey, granite-like stone slab hovering about two units off the ground. A network of pulsing, lighter-grey and whitish veins ran from its lower left to its upper right, interrupted only by, around a third of the way up its polished front, a horizontal metal rectangle framing a thin slot that ran around across its ‘face’. A few black wires ran from the shiny metal behind its back. How this thing got in the building on an inservice day, he had no idea. 

From behind the slab floated a lavender-colored cephalopod, alternating between translucent and opaque.  Rodridguez noted that it was roughly the size of the armoire from the predynastic Crittig exhibit downstairs, then quickly dodged another beam before seeing it slice clean through the cephalopod and hit the wall directly behind it.  The cephalopod barely noticed.  It turned slightly to view the wall, right as another beam also went right through it, then held up one of its tentacles as a third beam passed through it, as well.  Rodriguez felt an odd humming in the air and an equally odd crackle of static electricity.  He looked down at his forearm and saw his hairs standing on edge, then glanced back at the cephalopod just as it changed from lavender to a muted pink.  A fifth beam ripped out at it, but this time it bounced off that same tentacle, leaving a tiny indentation that quickly healed.  The cephalopod lowered it, then pivoted and faced him.

“Well, perhaps it’s not sentient.” The voice appeared to come from the slab, although Rodriguez had no idea how. Two of the cephalopod’s tentacles made a shrugging gesture. Another blast hit the wall beyond them, near the freight elevator.

“I didn’t say it definitely wasn’t sentient. I just said perhaps,” said the slab, seemingly to no one at all.  “What?  I don’t think we need to ask if it’s sentient.  It either is or it isn’t.  What good would asking do?  No. Why would we do that?  If it isn’t sentient, it won’t understand what we’re asking it, right?  If it is, then the question itself is irrelevant.”

The cephalopod, still facing Rodriguez, held up a single tentacle between itself and the slab.

“Fine,” said the slab.  Yet another beam sliced by, obliterating the Museum of Indigenous Technology – Main Entrance sign behind them.  “Be that way.”  The slab turned toward Rodriguez and, in a somewhat exaggerated tone said, “You there, are you sentient and, if so, are you an authorized employee of this museum?”

“What? I’m… I mean, well…” Rodriguez half whispered, half hissed.

The slab moved closer, somewhat uncomfortably closer, then moved past him and faced the counter.

“I said, are you sentient and, if so…”

The cephalopod stretched out another tentacle and gently tapped the back of the slab.

“What is it now?” said the slab, pivoting around.  The tip of the tentacle motioned down toward the still cowering Rodriguez, right as yet another beam shot by and blasted the last remaining batch of maps.  “This… being?” said the slab, motioning toward him.  “You think it is the sentient one?  Really?” Another two tentacles drifted over, pointing to Rodriguez, with still another resting on the back of the slab, nudging it toward him. “But, this countertop is a dense, igneous substrate, likely millions of cycles old.  You don’t get to be that old without sentience.  It takes skill – wisdom – to reach such an age.”  Another tentacle made a dismissive gesture.  “Really?” said the slab. “Biological life forms all look the same to me.  I mean, how do we know it doesn’t run around on all four limbs, gnawing vegetation?  Hold on.  I’ll ask it.  You – creature.  Are you sentient?”

“Um, well, y-yes?”

“Ah, sentience.  Do you gnaw vegetation?”

“Well, um… my species is vegetarian, so, yes?” he said, his eyes darting back and forth from the slab to the Great Hall.

“I see.  Apologies for confusing your primitive appearance with a lack of sentience.  You’re an employee of this institution?”

“I-I am.  I’m sorry, but could you keep it down? We’re in a…. situation here!”

“You certainly are,” the slab replied. “And it’s very serious.” The cephalopod folded two of its arms, and wagged a third at Rodriguez. “But we’re here to help.”

“Great!” A wave of relief came over Rodriguez. “What are you going to do about…?” Rodriguez pointed a thumb at the Great Hall. Another explosion boomed.

“We are here to solve that problem. I am Rohk,” the slab said. “The Seventh Kalun of Inthwatan, Heir to the Great Wapghniki, and Bearer of the Sacred Nvokol!”

There was an awkward pause, until the cephalopod reached out a tentacle and tapped the slab.

“And this is my Tendril, a member of a parasitical species that travels with me.”

The cephalopod tapped the slab—Rohk—less gently.

“A symbiotic species.”

The cephalopod folded two of its arms, then started tapping the ground loudly with another one.

“Its name is Maurice.”

The cephalopod’s skin pulsed.

“No,” Rohk said, annoyance creeping into his voice, “I’m not saying that.  You’re not ‘Magnificent’. You don’t just get to be ‘magnificent’.”

The cephalopod’s skin pulsed brighter, changing from pink to red.

“No,” said the slab.  “No one here is magnificent.  Look around.  I’m not going to call you that.  That’s just not a thing.”

The cephalopod flashed bright red.

“Fine,” said the slab, exasperated. “This is Maurice, the… nearly Magnificent.”

A burst of colors that reminded Rodriquez of fireworks played across Maurice’s body and limbs, and it looked like it started into a dance.

Another “Repent!” drew Rodriguez’s attention away from the cephalopod. A blast from Patelinu’s mouths passed within units of the display holding the Precious Holy Urn of G#πan. Words came back to him from his first day of training: All of the artifacts here are rare, but PHUG, which is how Curator Chanyit referred to it, is our crown jewel.

“So, um…” said Rodriguez, still cowering behind the counter,“You’re here to help, right?” Maybe this was some sort of ancient enemy or keeper of the technology or species or being that was or had possessed the artifact that Patelinu had been putting in the display case, he thought.

“And help we shall. I am a Level N-92 agent of the Intergalactic Museum, Archive, and Cultural Depository Confederation’s Asset Inventory Authority’s Sub-Agency for the Reconciliation of Interdepartmental Documentation Informatics.”

Maurice tapped Rohk.

“Maurice… works with me.”

“Wait, you’re with what?”

“You probably know our sub-agency by the more popular acronym we call ourselves.” Rohk emitted a series of low-pitched wails, interspersed with guttural clicking sounds that grew to a crescendo to the point where Rodriguez felt his teeth vibrating inside his head, then it abruptly stopped.  “It rolls off the… what would this species call it?” Rohk paused. The cephalopod turned slightly green, then slightly bluish.  “Yes, tongue, right?”

Rodriguez stared at them blankly.

“Species in your quadrant usually just refer to us as the Confederation’s form guys.”

Rodriguez nodded. That, he somewhat understood. He faintly remembered from various trainings and, since then, overheard snippets of conversations among department heads about how much effort Confederation compliance could cause. It was a relief to find out that the Confederation could also ride to their rescue.

 Bolts hit somewhere in front of Rodriguez and to his right. He was probably safe for now, but maybe not if Patelinu came much closer.

“So,” Rodriguez whisper-screamed, “you’re here to help us?”

“Naturally,” Rohk responded. Traction-fed paper began emerging from the slot on Rohk’s front, a seemingly endless scroll of it that Maurice caught as it came out, tearing from the edges thin strips of paper with holes punched in it—perhaps, Rodriguez guessed, to help guide the paper out of Rohk—and folding the sheets until, finally, they stopped, with Maurice holding a stack of paper that appeared to be thicker than Rohk. Where all that paper came from, Rodriguez had no idea.

“Are you authorized to complete Form FHP-5812-R-7?” Rohk asked. Maurice proffered the ream-sized stack to Rodriguez.

“What? We need to fill this out for you to help us?”

“You need assistance, correct?”

“Repent!” Patelinu thundered again, and the sound of four bolts exploding against what to Rodriguez sounded like the museum’s newly-installed, massive, perfect-to-scale 1/200th-size model of a ceremonial chamber from the Great Temple of Bixfhloshadon. He and the curation team spent nearly three cycles researching and consulting on the construction of it. Rodriguez didn’t need to look to know that it was destroyed beyond repair. He turned back to Rohk and Maurice.

“Can you just stop Patelinu, or whatever’s possessed her – now – before she destroys the museum? I’ll get an office head to fill that out later.”

“Tell me more about this Patelinu.”

“She was recalibrating the Trinquidernian Cube, like she does every week, and then all of a sudden she started – ”

Two blasts exploded, and Patelinu roared “Repent! Repent!” Rodriguez peeked out, and quickly calculated that, given where Patelinu was and where the blasts had hit the wall, they couldn’t have missed the PHUG by much.

“That,” Rodriguez pointed a thumb toward the Great Hall. “First her eyes started glowing  purple, then she started telling us to ‘repent’—why or about what, I have no idea—and then some sort of energy bolts started coming out of both her mouths.”

“I see,” Rohk said. “The Trinquidernian Cube is exactly the exhibit that we came here to address. Do you have Confederation certification 12-HZ, and do you hold a supervisory position?”

“What?” Another bolt hit the ceiling at the other end of the Great Hall. “No, look, I…”

Rohk emitted a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “Maurice, after all that prattling, it appears that this functionary does not possess Level 4-N authority.”

Maurice put the back of a tentacle to its forehead and shook its entire head back and forth.

“Sentient being, can you please direct us to a properly certified supervisor?”

“I think Johesh is pinned down by that big stone arch leading to the Lower Wing.”  He picked up one of his maps and pointed to where, when Patelinu had first gone berserk, he had seen Johesh dive for cover.

“Excellent. Maurice, come along.”

Rohk glided out into the Great Hall, with Maurice trailing.

“Wait!” cautioned Rodriguez, “you’ll get—” As a bolt came in their direction, he ducked back behind the ticketing counter’s rubble. He heard two sounds in rapid succession, the first a loud electric popping sound coming from the direction of Rohk and Maurice, the second the now-more-familiar report of a bolt hitting plaster. He looked out to see Rohk and Maurice continue toward Johesh. A wisp of smoke rose from Rohk’s upper right—corner? Shoulder? Did that thing, being, even have what could be said to be body parts?

“No,” said Rohk, apparently addressing Maurice in a frustrated tone, “that energy emission was entirely unauthorized.” Rodriguez watched as Rohk continued in a straight line, seemingly oblivious to the bolts screeching this way and that, the sparks emanating from where a screen had been hit, or the sprinkler that activated over the smoldering ruins of the scale model of the ceremonial chamber.

“REPENT – OR BE FORSAKEN!” The bolts definitely increased in frequency, he thought. Rodriguez looked around.  Engineered to withstand a quantonuclear event, the  building’s structoskeleton could probably withstand days of this kind of bombardment. But the axaro-glass that protected the PHUG, he wasn’t so sure. Rodriguez knew from his training that the exhibit casing was sealed and radiation-proofed, and could withstand pressures of up to three macromass per square unit. But whether it could weather one of those bolts, he had no idea.

Rohk rotated when he got to the arch. Although unable to make out exactly what Rohk was saying, Rodriguez was relieved that Johesh was alive, and maybe could get Rohk to subdue Patelinu before they all got crushed. Maurice began slowly drifting behind Rohk, clearly now conversing with Johesh, who Rodriguez couldn’t see but assumed was sheltering behind the arch. When the cephalopod got around ten units behind Rohk, it suddenly darted around twenty units in the air and up to its left, directly in the path of a bolt that passed right through it. Its surface glowed an alternating orange and red. Maurice then flew nearly across the Great Hall in front of another bolt that passed through, this time flashing a pattern that reminded Rodriguez of fireworks. Another bolt, and now Maurice glowed a pattern reminiscent of… paisley?

When something touched his back shoulder, Rodriguez nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned to see Johesh crouched behind him, his normally bright orange tendrils flecked with dust and bits of masonry. 

“Hey! What are you doing here?” Rodriguez asked, embarrassed to have lost his cool.

“Sorry!” Johesh whispered, the gold stripes on his arms and face pulsing as his three eye stalks darted around. “I didn’t want to draw the attention of… whatever’s inside Patelinu. But, why wouldn’t I be here?”

“Oh, I thought…” Rodriguez started to point out toward where Rohk was, but then looked back at Johesh.

“I circled back around once the shooting started. What’s the situation?”

“Patelinu, or whatever’s in Patelinu, is still busting up the place.”

“Right! Well, it’s all on us then, isn’t it?,” Johesh said. “Where’s all the other museum personnel?”

“They were all out of the line of fire and on the other side, so probably down in Two, in the safe room.  Is help on the way?”

“I used the emergency call holo, but the dispatcher said that with all the budget cuts, Central Ops is down to one response unit, and they’re out at a big collision on Flyway 7.  They could get here by tea, or never.” Johesh gestured toward the stack of paper at Rodriguez’s feet. “Hey, what’s that?”

“Some slab of stone and his floating octopus showed up. They say they’re from the Confederation.” Rodriguez pointed his head out at the Great Hall.  The sound of another blast echoed.

Johesh’s left and central eyes looked at Rodriguez and narrowed, while he extended his right eye stalk to get an angle at the Great Hall.

“The Confederation?  Really?  Wow, Rohk and Maurice!” Johesh exclaimed.

“You know them?”

“Heard of them. They’re, like, legendary. Literally.  Minor deities. I saw them at a risk management conference once, on one of the Kaltric moons.  Great symposium.  Their spreadsheets were pristine, let me tell you.”  Rodriguez nodded politely, still furtively glancing over at the chaos behind them.  “Believe it or not, in the system where they came from, Rohk is the demigod of paperwork and, I don’t know, hovercraft racers or shoelaces or something. Shows how big the galaxy is.  There’s a demigod for everything, you know?”

Rodriguez glanced again beyond the desk, to see Maurice continuing to zigzag across the vault of the Great Hall, transforming each time the cephalopod absorbed a bolt.

“If Rohk’s the demigod of paperwork, what’s Maurice the demigod of?” Rodriquez asked. Johesh looked down at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then shrugged.

“War?  Or maybe wine?  Something with a ‘w’, I think.”

Johesh extended all three of his eye stalks to spy into the Great Hall. Patelinu emitted another blast that Maurice chased, and while Rodriguez couldn’t make out the words, Rohk appeared to be trying, and failing, to elicit a response from the granite base of the Great Arch.

“Let’s get them over here,” Johesh said. He waited for the sound of a blast, then leaned out beyond the desk and inflated his mouth sacks. His voice boomed loudly across the Great Hall. “Rohk! Rohk! Over here!”

Rohk rotated back from the base of the Arch, then turned toward Johesh and Rodriguez and glided toward them.  As Rohk zipped back across the hall, an absurdly thick stack of forms trailed behind it as it spat out of his slot.

Rohk showed no regard either to Patelinu’s increasing frequent blasts – which bounced off its angular backside and ricocheted into several exhibits – or exhortations to repent. Maurice continued to chase the blasts, one turning it day-glow yellow, another giving it alternating green and purple stripes. Rodriguez noticed that a blast had hit directly over the PHUG. A section of the ceiling had fallen on the case, and an exposed pipe dripped on the top.  He was relieved that the case and PHUG appeared undamaged.

“Are you a) sentient, b) an authorized supervisor, and c) have you completed Form FHP-5812-R-7?” Rohk asked Johesh.

“Um, yes, yes, and no.  Well, not yet!”

“Maurice!” Rohk bellowed, if a seemingly solid slab could be said to bellow. The cephalopod darted to the end of the long scroll of paper now extending across the floor, folded it in a whir, and dropped the stack of forms next to Johesh with a moist fwump.  Maurice gestured to it with a tentacle while patting Rodriguez and Johesh on their backs with two other ones.

Rohk hovered over to them. “You must complete Form FHP-5812-R-7. As a certified supervisor, you may also initiate protocol SR-90, granting temporary authority to deploy Interventional Bureaucratic Disruption measures.”

“What does that even mean?” asked Rodriguez.

Maurice flashed a sequence of calming blues and greens as Rohk said, “It means we file the pink form.”

“The… the pink form?”, asked Rodriguez, nervously.

Johesh grimaced. “You can’t be serious. The last time we used that, it took three cycles, two elective surgeries, and a tribunal!”

“We’ve updated it,” said Rohk, with a slight tone of satisfaction. “It now only takes four signatures, a temporal acknowledgment waiver, and a single elective surgery.  The tribunal is entirely optional now (though I still recommend it – the pageantry is magnificent).”

Maurice solemnly extracted from Rohk a shimmering pink form and handed it to Johesh.  With a sigh, Johesh reluctantly signed it by way of a palm print.

Rohk moved back slightly, then announced in as official a tone as possible, “Let the Interventional Disruption commence!”  It inhaled deeply—or emitted a noise that sounded like a slab inhaling deeply—and then unleashed bureaucratic hell.  A vortex of papery light burst from Rohk’s front panel. Flocks of humming microforms swarmed through the air, spiraling toward Patelinu. Most bolts she launched were quickly intercepted mid-flight by holographically printed carbonless triplicates, which absorbed the energy, glowed a furious orange, and then filed themselves neatly into the air like origami doves.  The few bolts that weren’t intercepted ricocheted around the hall, randomly bouncing off, punching through, or vaporizing  exhibits depending on their chemical composition.  Out of the corner of his eye, Rodriquez saw the PHUG disappear in a flash of teal smoke.

Meanwhile, Maurice floated directly in front of Patelinu, its form pulsing in an incomprehensible bureaucratic rave tempo. A field of what appeared to be linked holostyluses surrounded the cephalopod in orbit, scribbling furiously in languages known only to tax assessors, archivists, and Quivistalian bookmakers.

Patelinu’s eyes glowed brighter, her arms shaking as she screamed, “REPENT!—”

“Form HN-2A filed!” Rohk boomed.

“—REP—”

“Request for Energetic Possession Moratorium, subclause 8, filed and retroactively backdated!”

Patelinu froze.

Maurice extended a tentacle… and gently tapped her forehead.

She blinked. Once. Twice. Then collapsed, completely unconscious.

For the first time that morning, the Great Hall was as quiet as a xenomouse.

Teal smoke drifted lazily above the ruined exhibits. A scorched Ancient Reliquaries & Databases sign, once hanging proudly above the entrance, swayed flaccidly behind them.

Rodriguez and Johesh cowered in stunned silence, until they heard the sound of printing.  They turned their gaze to Rohk, who emitted what might have been a receipt of some sort, which Maurice grabbed from Rohk’s horizontal slot.  In a blur of tentacles, Maurice folded it in a seemingly prescribed manner, and promptly swallowed it.

Rohk turned toward them.

“We have contained the artifact’s emergent entity and retroactively revoked its dimensional possession permit. You’re welcome.”

“You… what?” asked Rodriguez, blinking far too many times.

“We nullified the breach via regulatory intervention.” Rohk turned to Johesh. “Now. Regarding the aftermath—”

Maurice dropped another stack of papers from out of nowhere.  They landed with a thud and a poof of masonry dust.

“What… what is this?” Johesh asked in a low, quiet tone, filled with dread.

“Incident Reports, Destruction Logs, Dimensional Possession Appeal Forms, Unauthorized Energy Discharge Summaries, Historical Reconstruction Authorizations, and, of course, the Post-Event Custodial Statement.”

“But… the paperwork! It’ll take a lifetime!”

Rohk’s slab-face somehow smiled. “Perhaps, for a carbon-based life-form. And don’t forget the appendices.”

Maurice helpfully unrolled an additional scroll that extended across the debris-strewn floor.

“But wait—didn’t you cause some of this?” Rodriguez asked, gesturing to the still-smoldering display that had once housed the PHUG.

“Oh, that,” Rohk said, floating serenely above the wreckage. “Minor collateral compliance deviation. You’ll find the PHUG destruction covered under Clause 47-B of Form FHP-23: ‘Incidental Sacred Artifact Loss Due to Form-Processing Interventions.’ Very standard.”

Rodriguez slowly knelt, picking up the glittering, cracked base of the PHUG. He looked back up, horrified. “That’s the crown jewel of the museum!”

“I’m sure it was,” Rohk said.

Maurice flashed sympathetically, draping a tentacle around Rodriguez’s shoulder.

Rodriguez collapsed into a heap beside the paperwork as Rohk began to glide toward the exit. Maurice rose from Rodriguez and floated above Rohk.

“Oh,” Rohk called back, “someone will be in touch within two cycles for your compliance audit. Good luck!”

Maurice did a figure-eight in the air. Smoke wafted from the smoldering remains of  the model of the Great Temple of Bixfhloshadon, obscuring Rodriguez’s sight.  When the smoke blew past, Rohk and Maurice were gone.

Rodriguez turned to Johesh.

“I’m gonna need… so much coffee.”

Johesh sighed a deep, low sigh – one that, to civilians, may have just seemed like any other sigh.  Yet, to any public administrator, civil servant, or middle manager, it was immediately recognizable.  It was not simply a sigh: it was the sigh: the sigh of drudgery, of forlorn acceptance, of lost youth, of green eyeshades and short-sleeved dress shirts, of unfulfilled potential wrapped in a timesheet and a pivot table.  He then cracked his knuckles, picked a holostylus off the floor, brushed some masonry dust off it, and handed it to Rodriguez.

“Let’s start with Form 1.”

The sprinkler above them activated again.



BIOS

Andy Schocket is a historian, writer, and proud union member. He lives in the banana republic known as “Ohio.”

Paul Cesarini is a Professor & Dean at Loyola University New Orleans.  His fiction appears in numerous venues, with additional stories in-press. In his spare time, he serves as the editor/curator of Mobile Tech Weekly, at: https://flipboard.com/@pcesari/mobile-tech-weekly-lh2560e4y

Paul is a big fan of science fiction from the 1930s–1950s. He is not a fan of wax beans. Beans are supposed to be green, not yellow.







The Messenger of Light

by Lia Tjokro



            You need to come home.

            That was it. That was all the message that Mama had left in my voicemail this morning. No how are you, no I miss you, let alone I love you. Nothing of that sort. Mama’s voicemail was always so short, so succinct, with that unmistakable sense of urgency in it.

            The message seemed important enough though. Mama never called me. I usually called her first. So if Mama did call and leave a voicemail, it meant it was important—important to the point of catastrophic consequences if I did not respond right away.

            I went and checked my work schedule for the next few days. I had just been accepted to work as a research assistant in a psychology lab in this university, my alma mater. My task was to manage the research participants’ data and contact, and this kind of job, though did not pay much, was a good bridge between my undergrad psychology degree and my plan to apply for a postgraduate education sometime next year. So I hated it that so soon after I began working, I had to ask for a few days leave. That would leave a bad impression to my supervisors.

            But Mama, and by extension Ah Gong[1], had always had that hold over me. Like all that they wanted me to do had to be done or they would make sure I remembered my disobedience for days or even years to come. I knew, because my going to the university was an act of disobedience in their eyes, their pride was wounded because I did not follow the path that they had prescribed for me: Joining the family business.

            However, they gritted their teeth, forced a smile, clenched their fists, and allowed me to go to the university. I used to wonder why they relented and let me go, until I realized: They gained an upperhand on me because of that. Upperhand, because for years after, they never ceased to remind me that it was because of their generosity to allow me to go that I got to taste higher education. Though it was Papa (who had been the one fighting to get me to the university), a full scholarship offered by the university, and a chance to get away from Mama and Ah Gong that convinced me to go to the university.

            Papa passed away two years ago, so Mama and Ah Gong had been hinting about me finally joining the family business.

             I disliked the term family business, because what Ah Gong and Mama did was not really a business, for me it was more like a family obsession, albeit an outdated, borderline unhinged, obsession. They called themselves and the family business as “the messenger of light,” but I failed to see what kind of light they meant.

            I loathed my childhood home, a home where Ah Gong and Mama still lived in now. It was not just the two of them who made me feel like it was never a home for me.

            It was those people. I loathed them too. Very much. They did not do anything to me, but still, they scared me. They were not even supposed to be there. Over the years, I had learned to just ignore them, pretended they were not there.

            It was all Ah Gong’s, and to some extent, Mama’s fault. They should stop doing their dealings with those people. I knew the presence of those people was the main reason why Papa divorced Mama when I was on the cusp of pubescence—he had held on for so long and they broke him at last. He moved so far away from us, never came back to visit the family home anymore until he passed away.

            I used to go to Papa’s tiny apartment for a much-needed vacation, though Papa —with his love-and-hate relationship with alcohol and shaky employment history—would never be able to take me in and raise me. So that was how I got stuck with Mama in that wretched house.

            Being away at the university was a reprieve for me, but now I was called to go back home.

            So I had to go home.

            The next morning I got my bus ticket and sat for hours in the bus to go home. My heartbeat got wilder the closer I got home, and I toyed a few times with the possibility of just calling Mama from the bus terminal and told her I could not go home because I felt sick, or better yet, just completely went off the radar and ran away from her and Ah Gong.

            But that house. Mama. Ah Gong. There was this strange pull that made sure I always came home—like a gravitational force that pulled me straight into a black hole.

            I arrived home when it was almost dinner time.

            My childhood home was located far from the neighbours, behind black welded steel gates. The old colonial-style house had stood there since the beginning of the last century. Ah Gong’s grandparents were the ones building it.

            The house was dilapidated—peeled-off paint, cracks on the glass windows, busted lightbulbs, dead plants. The only plants that were still alive were the frangipani trees in the four corner of the front yard. Those people liked the frangipani, I did not know why, maybe they were attracted to the sharp and sweet smell of the flowers.

            There used to be a rock pond where koi fish swam and a small water fountain gave a calming vibe to the front yard. The koi were long dead, and the pond had dried out and was overrun by some tall grass and the rotten branches of fallen trees. There was nothing left of it to see. Too bad, because that pond was my only beautiful memory of this place. I used to sit there barefooted, dipping my feet into the koi pond with Papa doing the same next to me. We would sit for hours, watching the koi fish swim around our submerged feet, chilling, and chatting about important and unimportant matter. I missed that moment a lot and it made me want to cry to think that that moment would never return. The koi fish,  the pond, and Papa were all gone.

            Mama opened the door after I rang the doorbell. She wore her usual ensemble—cheongsam[2]-style silk top and knee-length silk skirt, both in worn-out pink. Her thinning dark brownish hair was meticulously swept in a small bun on top of her head.

            “You have arrived,” she nodded with such formality that I wondered if she had forgotten that it was her daughter who was standing at the door.

            I nodded back.

            “Ah Gong is resting. He has been very busy these days. Would you like to have dinner?”

            I nodded.

            Mama’s expression softened as she led me through the house that smelled more and more like dust and mothballs. Rattan furniture, ceramic floor, dull green walls, all were old and looked like they came straight from the 1970s. I remembered even as I was growing up here, I rarely invited any friend over to visit this home. I was not sure why, maybe because the vibe of this house was nevercozy or homey. I did not want my friends (not that many to begin with) to meet those people. That would be calamitous.

            Mama was quiet as she prepared a bowl of rice with some braised pork and steamed broccoli on the side and handed it to me. She let out a loud sigh before settling herself on the chair next to me.

            I ate my bowl of rice with chopsticks, staring in full focus at the sticky grains of rice, the oily braised pork, and the overcooked bland broccoli. Mama was never a talented cook—she cooked because she had to, because that was what expected of her, because we could not afford a domestic helper, so she did what she could. I learned to appreciate whatever she cooked, and once in a blue moon, when I got the chance to eat at my friend’s house or someone else’s, they always praised me because I was such an easy eater.

            Your mama has raised you well, that was what they said. If Mama had heard that, she would have disagreed. She raised me to be obedient, and I was not obedient. I was difficult and stubborn (she had said it herself to me on many occasions).

            Mama kept her eyes on me the whole time during dinner, and that made me nervous—it was like she was examining me, my demeanor, my chewing, my using of the chopsticks, my whole being was being prodded, investigated, and analyzed.

            “You look thinner,” she concluded. I found it rather amusing that that statement had come from Mama. She was much thinner than me. Her collarbones protruded, her cheek shriveled like dried plums, her jaws bony, and her skin had less and less tautness and lustre on it.  It was like living in this house had sucked the vigor of life out of her.

            “I’ve been busy.”

            “I called you to come home because we need to talk about your future. Ah Gong gets older and more easily tired now. He almost fainted a couple days ago because of fatigue.”

            “Is he alright now?” I looked up to Mama.

            Mama sighed. “He is alright now, but still weak. That is why we need to talk about you and your future—” Mama paused, looked at me straight, and continued,”Your future here, with us, in this home.”

            “My future is doing a postgrad study at the university, Mama. I know what I want.”

            “Come back here, live with us again. Ah Gong gets weaker and there are more people out there that need our help,” Mama stared unblinked at me as she spoke, it was as if she did not hear any word of what I had just said about my future plan.

            “No.”

            “Do not be stubborn, Eva.”

            I remained quiet and struggled to swallow a chunk of rubbery pork in my mouth.

            “You can start your training soon.”

            I lifted my face to Mama and shook my head hard. “No! I do not want to-to do whatever you guys do!”

            “What do you mean you do not want to?!” a thunderous roar startled me. My heart sank.

            “Ah Gong!” I turned around, saw Ah Gong, a man in his 80s, with short and slightly obese stature, sparse white moustache and balding head. The off-white sleeveless cotton shirt he wore did not hide layers of fat dangling from his armpits. The wrinkles formed lines crisscrossing his face, and his expression was grim. His greyish eyes fixated upon me.

            Mama stood up like a robot and rushed to him, helping him to his seat at the head of the dining table, then she sat on the chair next to him, across from me.

            “You have to do it,” he bellowed the moment his buttock touched the seat.

            “No, I won’t, Ah Gong,” I wanted to be brave, but my voice trembled nevertheless. Ah Gong was, and had always been, scary to me.

            “Your mother here has no talent whatsoever! But you, since the day you were born, I could sense a great talent in you!” he pointed his meaty index finger at me.

            I instinctively glanced at Mama, she avoided my glance. Mama looked so frail next to her father. Her back was bent and curled almost like a ball, and her head bowed down like she was in a deep shame.

            “No, Ah Gong. I want to study psychology at the university. I want to continue studying it next year—“

            “No! We gave you a chance to pursue that-that psyc-pycholo-whatever that is. That is it!”

            “No. I will not live here and do whatever you do, Ah Gong! I do not want to!” I was stubborn and angry and loud, but what the heck, they would not listen when I was being polite (which was in a lot of occasions in the past), so might as well be loud and angry. I grew cold when I saw Ah Gong eyes grow wider, his wrinkles seemed to pulsate, while Mama shrunk even deeper in her ball-like shape.

            I was determined that I would not back down. I abhorred this house, I abhorred the cloying smell of incense and jossticks that had filled the air I breathed since childhood, and above all, I abhorred those people.

            Ah Gong glared at me, his fingers tapped the table, and Mama looked at me with widened eyes, like she was fearing for my life and hers. I did not care, Mama never stood up for me anyway. She was always on Ah Gong’s side, and I could never understand that. Ah Gong never thought much of her. Your mother here has no talent whatsoever, callous as it sounded, but it had become so normal for me to hear it that I wished Mama could just say something back, retaliated, shouted, be pissed off, whatever it was to show Ah Gong her displeasure. But no, never.

            “Go to your room and think about what you have just said!” Ah Gong pointed at me with his right index finger, his voice hoarse and thick with rage.

            “Eva, please just say yes—“ Mama’s voice was so meek, a plea that annoyed me so much I threw my chopsticks on the table and rushed to my bedroom.

            “You think you are so smart, don’t you? You got university degree and now suddenly your own family is not good?!” Ah Gong was not done yet. He was banging on the table and screaming as I dashed even faster to my bedroom.

            My bedroom was the one closest to the living room, just across from Ah Gong’s work room. Work room. I never wanted to go inside Ah Gong’s room. I could not breathe in there with the thick incense smell and God-knows-what else that was burned there. Ah Gong would accept his clients in there, and I could hear them talking, crying, screaming. Then those people came, those I did not know who they were, those I ignored.

            I saw some even now. Years and years of practice had turned me into an expert at ignoring them,  but still I saw them from the corner of my eyes.

            Those people. They did nothing. They just stood, stared at me with their emotionless, pitch-black iris of the eyes, sometimes they faded away after I blinked, sometimes they persisted. I did not recognize them, I had no idea who they were, their clothes showed they came from different decades of the century. I thought of them as statues that decorated the interior of this house, they were part of this house, but not part of me.

            Ah Gong and Mama did not know that I could see them. That would remain so.

            So now I just sat on my bed.

            One of those people was in my room too. She stood next to the window. A young woman about the same age as me, her exquisite makeup, her ankle-length red silk cheongsam with thigh-high slit, wavy shiny black hair clipped with a gold butterfly hairclip, made her look like she came straight out of the peak of the roaring 1920s in Shanghai. She was beautiful—pale and lifeless, but beautiful nonetheless.

            “Who are you?” I whispered.

            She did not reply. She did not move. She just stood and stared at me.

            I knew those people would never answer when I asked them anything.

            I chuckled to myself. How could they answer you, silly?                 

            Those people were dead people, some of them had been dead for a long, long time judging from the clothes they wore. The dead did not just carry on conversation like the living now, did they?

            This month was the hungry ghost month[3], those people loved this month. I saw them everywhere I went, not just in this blasted house. Getai[4] was their favourite hangout and I avoided those as much as I could. I had enough of those people at home, I did not need to see them out there too.

            From outside my bedroom, from Ah Gong’s work room to be precise, I heard another of Ah Gong’s clients wailing and screaming—she was wailing in Mandarin about something, but I could not catch what it was she was saying.

            I got curious, so I stood up and went to the door. I pressed my ear against the door, and I saw the ghost girl by the window tilted her pretty head slightly, as if she was curious too. I closed my eyes and listened to the woman’s wailing—

            I want to meet you, dear husband.

            I am so sorry for all the wrongs I did you.

            I want to apologize. Please come, come visit your heartbroken wife.

            Your children miss you so much too.

            We promised each other love of a lifetime, how come you leave me now by myself?

            I want to see you one more time. Just one more time.

            Please come.

            Please come.

            The woman’s wailing made me sad too. Such heartbreak. I remembered what Ah Gong always told me,”We are the messengers of light, Eva. We help people in the darkness of grief. Nothing is darker than grieving an unfinished matter, an unspoken love, an untold secret. We help bring light, bring consolation to people! We are the messengers of light!”

            I did not want to be a messenger of light like him.

            I would never understand why I had to be born into a family of mediums.

            My Ah Gong, my Mama (who was not so talented), and their predecessors were all mediums.

            The living (the client) came to Ah Gong with some urgent messages and unfinished business with the dead. Then Ah Gong called the dead people to come talk to the living. The living wanted closure, and the dead had to provide it.

            But those people, those dead ones, they did not always go back to where they had been before they were summoned back to the world of the living by Ah Gong and his mantras.

            They lingered in this house—trapped and lost in a limbo between the world of the dead and the living.

            I could never tell Ah Gong and Mama that I could see those people, I could see ghosts. That would confirm to them even more that I had to be a medium too.

            I began to see them when I was a little girl, about four or five years old maybe. I remembered the very first ghost I saw was this young boy about the same age as me at that time. I thought he was a kid who lived nearby who happened to wander into our yard to play. He just stood underneath the frangipani tree, so I started talking to him, he did not answer. I thought he was sick because he was so pale. I went into the house to get some toys to play with him, and when I got back to the yard again, he was gone. I did not think much about it, until I saw more. Young, old, females, males. Cold, pale, ephemeral, silent. In the shadow of the frangipani trees was their favourite spot in addition to being inside the house.

            At first I thought they were my parents’ or Ah Gong’s guests, until they began to appear in my bedroom too, and when I blinked, oftentimes they were gone, just like that.

            It was Papa who made me promise not to tell Mama or Ah Gong that I could see them.

            If you want a life outside this house, if you want a future for yourself, you have to stay quiet, ignore them, and do not ever tell Ah Gong and Mama that you can see them. Understand? That was what Papa had told me when I blurted out to him that I could see those people. It was when we were sitting by the koi pond one clammy evening, dipping our toes into the pond water.

            Eva, promise me you will not let Mama and Ah Gong know you can see those people. Do you hear me? Papa held my hands, repeated his request, his voice shivered, like he almost cried. I knew he was dead serious.

            So I nodded. I promise, Papa. A promise I had kept all these years and I was thankful for Papa and his keen warning.

            I refused to spend the rest of my life among those people, to be a living person trapped in this house with the dead, ghosts, spirits, whatever they were called. Sometimes I wondered though: Do those dead people feel trapped too with us, the living, here? Don’t they have some beautiful, peaceful place they can go to after they are done with the world of the living?

            If my family business was to be the messenger of light for the living, what were we then to the dead if they ended up being unable to move on with their journey to the beautiful, peaceful place, to their afterlife? My family had trapped them here in this house.

            From the corner of my eyes, I saw the ghost girl stand right next to me.

            I turned to look at her, and a faint smile broke on that lifeless face.

            It dawned upon me: The ghost girl was so much like me.



BIO

Lia Tjokro is a Chinese-Indonesian writer with a background in cognitive psychology & cognitive neuroscience. She was born and spent her childhood and part of teenage years in Palembang in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. She writes in English and Indonesian. Her works have appeared in Porch Litmag, Kitaab, The Citron Review, Mekong Review, Harrow House Journal, Ricepaper Magazine, and ScribesMICRO. She has published one novel in Indonesian. She has lived and worked in Singapore and the US before, and currently she lives in the Netherlands with her husband, son, and their family dog. You can find her on IG februalia1 (https://www.instagram.com/februalia1/).




[1] Grandfather from the maternal side.

[2] Traditional Chinese-style dress with standing collar, knee/ankle-length, close-fitting shape, it is also called “mandarin gown.”

[3] Seventh month of the lunar calendar, around August-September in international calendar. The month when it is believed that spirits of the dead roam the world of the living because the gates of the underworld are open.

[4] Boisterous live music stage performance set up to entertain the spirits of dead, usually done in some countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and some parts of Indonesia during the Hungry Ghost Month. The first row of seats in getai performance are typically left empty, they are reserved for the spirits.







The Shiva Option

by David A. Taylor



1.

Dmitri Somers rode to the conference center, cocooned in the office car from Bangkok’s dense custard of sound, struggling to collect his thoughts. A street vendor, threading her cart between lanes in the long jam of traffic, drew his focus. It was a welcome distraction from the task before him, which his supervisor had assigned the day before, of giving a public presentation about their research on tree species for farm families. At a conference! Twenty-four hours notice.

“The invitation had been there a while. I think he just didn’t read it,” said Tinya, the office manager. She told Dmitri this in a tone of consolation. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon reshuffling slides to assemble a story: trees in orderly rows, lush trees on farms, spindly saplings in dry terrain.

Outside his passenger window, a tuk-tuk rushed by with a tourist slumped in the backseat.

His driver, Daeng, was a sturdy man with a gruff laugh. After they turned onto a busy street near the city center, Daeng pointed to the roadside and said, “That woman speaks very good Thai.”

Dmitri looked where Daeng was pointing: a white woman in a sarong was using a traditional broom to brush the wet pavement. Doubled over as she flicked trash into the trickle of the gutter, she didn’t look like the image of proficiency.

“I hear her on the radio,” Daeng continued, “and she speaks Thai very well. She’s lived here for a long time. Maybe twenty years.”

Dmitri was often taken off guard by this kind of comment from Daeng. With a few followup questions, they eventually got to the point where Dmitri, as an American from Pennsylvania Dutch country, might have started the conversation. He would have said: “That woman runs a training school for dogs. The place she’s sweeping, that’s her pet supply shop. Sometimes I hear her on the radio.”

No, instead the driver came at it from a sharp angle.

They crawled through traffic past another set of posters for the upcoming election. The posters came in clusters of three photographs each, headshots pasted to every lamppost, red numerals beneath the faces indicating which box to mark on the ballot. Paper medallions fluttered everywhere. This would be the first election in years. Yet all the headshots simply reminded Dmitri of the posters of the Thai junta members that were still up on billboards.

“They say banks in the Northeast have run out of fifty-baht notes,” Daeng said. He shook his head. “So much vote-buying.”

Daeng rarely talked politics, was always crisply dressed. Yet Dmitri heard from Tinya that the driver was more of an activist than he let on, and even spent evenings tearing down posters of the junta’s candidates. Riots the week before had left people on edge. News reports were confusing. The other day Daeng had left the office early to visit a friend in the hospital. Dmitri had many questions, some doubtless inappropriate. Like, where had his friend been hurt? Now Dmitri was itching to follow up that vote-buying comment but felt paralyzed by what he knew of Thai politeness.

They rode mostly silent for the rest of the way.

When their progress stalled near the Buffalo Bridge intersection, Daeng cleared his throat. Dmitri expected him to hock out the window. Instead, the driver glanced in the rearview and asked, “Is Madam Meetri okay?”

Dmitri nodded. “Still in Bali. She’s fine, thanks.” Now it was his turn to go quiet, with her being gone two weeks and counting.

As they reached the conference center, Dmitri felt jitters about his presentation. As conferences go, this wasn’t a big draw, but if Dmitri did a good job more chances might come up. He and Jan had talked about traveling more. He was hoping for trips to Hanoi and Manila. She was now with her sister in Indonesia, strolling to a batik gallery in Ubud or soaking up the peace of a ricefield at breakfast.

The lights went down for his talk, and then the tech troubles escalated. First the clicker refused to advance. Dmitri kept squeezing it like he was searching for its pulse. No change, then it clicked furiously. PowerPoint went berserk and the images suddenly sped up on their own. Dmitri tried to catch up, and scrambled his sentences—a forest in Australia, the plantation with cracked soil of poor farmland in northeastern Thailand, a ditch choked with leaves.

He sensed, in his stomach, the audience abandoning him. But the images kept going, the way still images flash on the screen in a futurist Chris Marker film. Except they were eucalyptus trees passing in a dizzying stutter. When he finished, a pall fell on the room. Someone at the back raised her hand and asked why Dmitri’s group conducted research on “inappropriate” tree species, exotics that soaked up precious water that farmers needed for other crops?

Dmitri cleared his throat. “It’s true the trees can be placed where they aren’t well suited for local needs, but that doesn’t make them wrong everywhere,” he replied. “You need to choose your location wisely.”

There were no further questions. The session ended. He could breathe again.

He encountered his interrogator afterward in the marbled lobby. She was Thai, and wore a striking, deep blue sari. She swept up to him, balancing a plate with a slice of yellow cake, and interrupted the organizer, who was apologizing for the audiovisual glitch.

“Extraordinary topic, Mr. Somers. Pardon me, but you seemed so ill at ease that I didn’t press further. But I come from in the Northeast, where families are hungry because of those trees. Maybe researchers who promote them should go hungry for a little while too?”

What an extraordinary thing to say! Dmitri was stunned. Such blinding directness, so taboo in this country.

“Thank you for attending,” he mumbled.

“Yes, an important topic,” she said. “And you’re right, one needs to choose wisely.” She handed him her business card. It had a sweeping blue logo of a kingfisher bird in the upper left. Below her name, Nunti, it said, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, SHIVA ALTERNATIVES. He smiled and pocketed it as she walked away.

Why the sari? he wondered. It was an unusual choice for a Thai woman, neither a traditional wrap nor a modern-style outfit. In his head he heard a punch line: And the bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’ Dmitri told himself: Careful, you’re giddy. It’s easy to be smug and feel misunderstood, he thought, working with Thai researchers who themselves saw the lives people led in the countryside, the chip-dry fields of the Northeast. There were Thais on both sides of the issue of introducing new tree species and their damage and promise. He didn’t take such questions personally. They were legitimate. But this professor’s provocative tone got under his skin.

When he and Jan had moved to Thailand the year before, he felt their life was charmed. They were newly married, he had meaningful work in farming research supporting a cause of equity and sustainability. It was an exciting time to be in Asia. When disappointments surfaced, he found himself unsettled, feeling once again insufficient. Really, that day’s assignment of speaking at a technical conference when he was no technician, was the least of his troubles. At the top of that list was the crisis with Jan.

The conference organizer said that Dr. Nunti was a bit eccentric but had a remarkable story. “She grew up in a poor family in Isaan,” he said. “She got a scholarship to Oxford. And then she came back. And then her troubles began.” He went on: her son had become a student organizer and he had been lost in the recent protests. (Nobody knew much about the boy’s father.)

As the coffee break ended, Dmitri stayed long enough to signal he wasn’t some aloof expat who breezes in, yaks about his work, then leaves. But the fact was, the next session about legumes was out of his area. So when the lobby emptied, he made for the door.

He was on his own—this late in the afternoon there was no point returning to the office, with rush hour mounting every minute he stood at the university gate. There was no reason to surf the traffic tide to their empty flat. Jan and her sister were cavorting in the rice fields and craft shops of Ubud, having skedaddled as soon as the Bangkok protests had grown likely. Honestly, Dmitri took comfort that she was away. The Red Shirts occupied the shopping district. One night on the phone, he asked when she was coming back and she couldn’t say. She was confused by the news about the danger, and she knew Dmitri tended to underestimate problems. It irritated him when she said that, but he missed seeing her lips as she said it.

He hailed a cab, undecided where to go. As he sat in the passenger seat, he uttered the name of the lane in the old downtown where the Thai-German Cultural Center was located. Why had he said that? The cabby, a young man, looked impassively ahead.

After an hour the driver let him out, and drove off in a skein of rain pooled by the curb. The sky looked angry enough to dump another cloudburst and cause another nasty snarl. But the lane was quiet, as he remembered. Dmitri and Jan had come here in their first days in Bangkok. The garden and the manor-style architecture were the sanctuary he recalled. He realized it was a Wednesday, the day they showed movies at every Goethe cultural center around the world. He would get dinner in the compound’s Teutonic Ratsstübe and then climb the steps to the auditorium, and sit in darkness and forget his loneliness. As a foreigner, he was used to being an outlier; he wore it like one of the office shirts in his closet. But this evening he just wanted to escape the awkwardness.

The movie was a Werner Herzog film, a “visionary” documentary about nomads in the Sahara, the poster said. Dmitri liked Herzog, his imagery was vivid and weird. Things were looking up.

He took a seat in the café, and his thoughts turned to the woman at the conference. She was indignant, as if Dmitri were forcing farmers to grow the only tree with a market demand, instead of seeing him as part of an effort to broaden farmers’ options. Some of these nonprofit groups had such narrow agendas! Weren’t they all on the same side?

For the thousandth time he reflected that nobody ever conveyed their perspective clearly. We never really listen, we just listen for our own beliefs. He should have laughed and said, “Well, professor, you know Osmo Wiio’s first law: Communication usually fails; it succeeds only by chance.”

He waved to catch the waiter’s eye but the man skillfully avoided him and slipped away. Dmitri’s gut tensed – less than thirty minutes remained before the movie started.

Until an hour ago he hadn’t planned to see any film, but suddenly it was vital that he get himself to the auditorium in time for the opening credits of this film. All he wanted was to fend off a foreboding he had, that this lonely stretch would last much longer than expected.

Was it only a month ago he was eating noodles with Jan as they sat together on a bench in Lumpini Park? She had shared her complaints about life in Bangkok: the throttling traffic, the constant feeling of disorientation, the smog, the tropical heat and constant sweating, the stultifying social life. She had been trying hard to look past all those things, she said, to make it an adventure.

The morning of the coup had been like any other. There was a radio announcement after ten in the morning. Dmitri would have missed it but for the local staff’s murmuring. Frankly, in the chaos of jockeying between the prime minister and parliament, the news struck many as a relief. Initially. But the days that followed weighed on everyone. Dmitri and Jan had talked quietly over dinner – how long would it be before elections were called?Had the prime minister really been on that flight out? The traffic and smog were building again. Jan started missing a day or two of work to migraines. Dmitri would come home and find her in the room upstairs, on her back in bed. She rose a bit slower than usual. He saw it was getting to be too much.

“I might need a couple of weeks to figure things out,” she said, head resting on her laced hands. That was before the riot. He had sat there on the park bench, as he sat now in the Ratsstübe, without any words in his head. Was this the start of their first hard rough patch? Why did he feel so numb?

Finally Dmitri caught the bartender’s eye, who alerted the waiter, who nodded across the room to Dmitri.

As it turned out, he made the film in plenty of time. In front of the theatre, two women sat at a table with a sign-up sheet. Their handbill was printed in Thai. He could make out that it was an announcement of a concert, or a petition. Once in his seat, he stared at it and saw halfway down, sandwiched in the middle, the English phrase ‘Empower the people.’ Those words apparently had a valence that rendered them untranslatable (otherwise why leave them in English?). He wondered at how those words must look in all their foreignness, like in vitro and ex situ in scientific papers.

At the bottom, also in English, were the words “Shiva Alternatives.” The page dimmed and the film began and someone behind him coughed in the darkness. Then the screen filled with a blinding shaft of Saharan sun and waves of heat rising from the earth.

The next morning Dmitri opened the newspaper to more images of Red Shirt protestors who had camped out at the Siam Square mall. Riot police had dispersed them, and violence erupted again. He called Jan that evening to check in and reassure her. “Tinya asks if you’ve gotten sick from the food,” he said. “She says Bangkok food is the best.”

“Of course,” she deadpanned. “Everything okay at work?”

“Same old,” he said. “You?”

“Ha. Sharon has fallen in love with the concierge. She likes men in sarongs, apparently.”

Their tone stayed light. But when they were about to wrap up, she said she wasn’t sure it was safe for her to come back. He replied that the disturbance was miles away from their daily lives. “But I completely get your concern,” he added. “Things look scary, especially from far away.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

The next day was Monday, and Dmitri was back in the weeds of editing research papers, summarizing items for the newsletter, visiting a print shop for publishing a monograph. On the drive downtown Daeng seemed distracted. Dmitri asked about his friend.

“Not well,” Daeng said. “That day he got hurt, I went to find him. I got on a bus to Siam Square, but it stopped. There was smoke. The police ordered everyone off the bus.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence. Dmitri could think of nothing to say. The only words that came to him sounded cheap.

They made a series of tight turns onto narrower lanes in the old neighborhood beside the river. This was Dmitri’s first time using this particular print shop which offered a discount. His office had shifted to mostly online publications but they did need to print a small run for officials and others.

Dmitri walked through the facility with the manager, nodded at the presses used for different-sized runs. It was like touring a history of publishing. Every few steps they passed another generation of blackened, steel printing technology, all jammed together. The city’s few remaining print shops were cramped, factory spaces, wedged into these alleys by the river. They thundered with the clatter of metal smacking together like blocks in a typesetter’s tray. Dmitri liked the pungent smell of ink and the sound of paper hurtling out of the press.

He came out onto the street with an agreement for the print job, and realized that he was only a short walk from the thicket of lanes that housed the address on Dr. Nunti’s card. Daeng called to say he was delayed in traffic, so Dmitri suggested they meet in an hour at the entrance to that lane instead.

He made his way to the address, past buildings crushed against each other. He scanned the street numbers, which skittered up and down with no clear sequence. He had allowed time to get lost, he expected to get lost. He succeeded, overshooting the smaller lane—an alley, actually—that snuck off in a dogleg. Doubling back, he found the sign that said, along with many Thai characters, St. Louis Court.

He choked out a hiccup of laughter. The notion of a posh Western name in Roman lettering at that spot struck him as richly absurd. St. Louis Court! He ventured down the alley to what looked like a mechanic’s shop. Then he saw the street number above a blue door.

Nothing said Shiva Alternatives. Still, he was at the number on the card, so he rang the doorbell. He looked across at a small shop with a metal accordion gate that was firmly shuttered. The shop’s sign, as Dmitri pieced out the Thai lettering, said something ‘press’ but also contained the word ‘gun,’ transliterated from English. Curious.

The blue door opened and a young man in a white shirt and pressed slacks let him in. He guided Dmitri to a chair in the narrow hall, then retreated to the back and returned bearing a cup of instant coffee. After two minutes Dr. Nunti appeared. This time, she was wearing jeans and a dark top, and her hair was pulled back. She looked at ease, if a little mystified by the unexpected visitor. She cleared off a desk in the front room and gestured for him to sit opposite her. “What can I do for you?”

At that moment Dmitri couldn’t imagine why he decided to visit this person who had oozed disdain at the conference. He had just a gnawing curiosity, as if to uncover some hypocrisy or contradiction. He didn’t know. But the handbill he picked up at the movie screening pushed a question to his mind.

“What does your organization do?” he said.

“What do we do? Did you hear my presentation at the symposium?”

“I did,” he lied, “but I wondered if there was more to it.” He recalled with embarrassment leaving the conference for the Ratsstübe.

“Well, here’s a brochure,” she said, handing him a photocopied page. “I presume your interest is in our community agriculture and forestry work?”

He nodded equivocally, as if to say Sure but honestly, I was hoping for more.

“This will give you an overview. If you have questions, please let me know.” She stood and walked back to the staircase.

He read the brochure, feeling the assistant’s eyes on him. Dmitri glazed over quickly at the call for action in wording identical to many other groups. What was he looking for here? Equity, justice.

Yet the brochure presented the problem of rural poverty and exploitation from a different angle than most of the papers that he read. It showed a clear moral framework, with good and bad actors clearly etched. He felt a pang reading “the unwitting accomplices in oppression who try to impose unworkable solutions through the acronyms of international agencies.” A paragraph near the end carried a familiar administrative obliqueness:

Unrestricted by the sectoral blinders of government and international agencies, Shiva Alternatives faces rural problems in a holistic manner. Disease, declining farm yields, and poverty are symptoms whose common source is the system. Shiva addresses this system at all levels, from local empowerment to policy work, including public debate and retribution.

Some editor had messed up. The last word should obviously be “redistribution,” with “of wealth” or “of resources” to be added. Dmitri frowned. This kind of error made him crazy—it undermined all the authority of the text. Maybe Doctor Nunti wasn’t committed to communicating after all. He approached the assistant, absorbed in his task.

“Could I have one more word with her?” he asked in Thai. The young man nodded just perceptibly toward the back staircase.

The second-floor office was small. Light squeezed in through a window and onto Dr. Nunti’s desk. She swiveled her chair toward him.

“Excuse me?” she said crisply. Even in a frown of irritation, her face looked intelligent, her gaze intense.

“Sorry, I wanted to thank you,” he said. “This gives me a much better idea of your work.”

She nodded.

“Also, sorry—but I noticed a tiny error. It’s small but, of course, I’m an editor,” he said with a silly shrug. He held out the brochure and pointed to the sentence.

She read it and returned his smile. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“It should say redistribution, yes?”

Her smile tightened. He waited for her to elaborate, still holding the brochure out. Nothing.

“What,” said Dmitri, “does retribution mean here?” He heard his voice wheedle higher than he intended.

“Something we should not hesitate to dole out when oppressors persist in being obtuse,” she said. “To be honest, you seemed more astute than this, Mr. Somers, if I may say.” Now it was her turn for eyebrow raising. “That was my sense at the conference when you tried to put a sympathetic face on wrong-headed research.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s a reason you’re spared.”

“Spared?”

“So that you might report on what you witness. Without blinkers.”

Dmitri felt light-headed.

“You read the brochure,” she continued. “You know the blinders education forced on past generations, how it inured them to change despite their good intentions. You know the influence that international agencies have on forest departments–the suppression of local, better adapted efforts. What is it that you don’t understand?”

She stood, arms folded, a western posture. It was confusing to encounter a Thai person so willing to be confrontational. He bristled, yet was also fascinated.

“About me being spared?” he said.

“You’ll understand when it suits you.” With a brief nod, she signaled they were done.

When he pulled the door shut behind him, his hand rested on the doorknob. Across the alley, Gun-something printers was now open. His exchange with Dr. Nunti struck him as even more bizarre now that he was out in daylight, standing across from an everyday shop with a cement floor and old calendars on the wall. He walked back past the street sign announcing, ‘St. Louis Court.’ 

He thought again of what he should have said. “Well, you know Osmo Wiio’s first law: Communication usually fails; it succeeds only by chance.” Someday he would use that.

As he reached the mechanic’s garage, his phone rang. Daeng’s number came up on the screen with electric urgency, and Dmitri had a feeling of dread. In the distance he heard sirens.

2.

Dmitri was rattled as he watched the streets spin past the taxi’s window. What bothered him wasn’t Daeng getting tied up in traffic. It was that the exchange with Dr. Nunti had left him feeling on edge, and a nerve pain behind his right ear. She had basically said he was on the wrong side, again. Part of him dismissed that but some part of him nodded.

Every day more people were streaming downtown to the protests. The front page of the Bangkok Post that day had shown a sea of faces filling the Royal Green. TV clips panned across swaths of university students, street vendors, labor organizers, many donning bright green shirts. The next morning on the way to the office, Dmitri asked Daeng about his friend in the hospital.

“Not good,” the driver said flatly. He cleared his throat but didn’t say anything more. Daeng occupied the driver’s seat directly, like a pilot in the cockpit. They continued on. Cramped in the passenger seat, Dmitri turned his knees toward the window. The seatbelt’s sleek band slid against his clavicle. He considered the hospital. An image of Jan came to his mind, walking into a room where he was lying in a bed with metal side rails.

“How is his family?” he said.

Daeng’s eyes darted to meet his in the rearview mirror, then looked away. “Okay,” he said. “Worried.”

His extended arms swung the steering wheel slowly for a left turn. On a public university campus, people rarely talked openly about politics. International offices like theirs pretended they were above local politics, with chatter mainly about Asian issues. Even the local staff mentioned the protests only tangentially–comments about traffic detours and blockages, that kind of thing. He felt tempted to probe Tinya about the strange absence.

The issue finally came up in his Thai language lesson that afternoon. His tutor came to the apartment once a week, and politics was often a topic for conversation practice. She asked him to call her Kru, like at the school where she taught. Sometimes she came straight from classes, dressed in muted professional colors. Once she came directly from the hair salon, laughing and apologizing for the hair net—the stylist had run late. This time, she came from school, took her usual seat at the dining room table, and touched her glass of water repeatedly, a nervous tic.

Dmitri pushed himself into the Thai tonal ups and downs, and the long Pali-Sanskrit words for abstract concepts like “judge” and “democracy.” It was like the Latin creeping into Old English. The tutor touched her glass again, and gave a short laugh. “These words are tricky! My boss says the protestors at Royal Green got what they deserved.” She lifted her chin, a bit of bravado. She added that she herself agreed with the protests.

He struggled to stay in character as a language student. “What will happen with the protestors?” he asked carefully in Thai. “What will happen with democracy?”

The tutor giggled. “We do not know.”

Dmitri considered that. “I am thinking of going to Royal Green,” he said in the cadence of a textbook dialogue. “To see the protests.”

Kru made a face like she’d bitten something sour. “That is not good,” she said. “Foreigners should not intrude.” She added, “How will you know what to do?”

He practiced several forms of future tense. “I will observe,” he said.

“That is a bad idea,” she said, still with a sour face. “You are not a reporter.”

“Why?” he said. “What will happen?”

She shook her head. “Foreigners should not intrude in democracy.” Then she laughed.

The conversation kept gnawing at him. At the office he asked Tinya to lunch at the university cafeteria, hoping for some insight. But instead, over stir-fried rice, they traded complaints about the director and his misuse of the budget, and squandered credibility in the research community. The talk strayed to other countries. Tinya praised Chinese industriousness and endurance, and the broad education she’s gained from working with a range of people. She only recently learned the meaning of the Hindu Mel Pula holiday: Krishna’s killing of a bad ruler, celebrated with lighted candles. She encouraged her kids to go to Muslim families’ homes on Muslim holidays despite the bias that kept her from doing that as a kid. It was an unusually personal conversation. Yet Dmitri came away feeling he’d missed an opportunity.

He found himself craving the comfort of fast food. This was a source of shame; he considered himself a citizen of the world and hungry for other cuisines generally. But feeling ungrounded, he was soon in the mall near Democracy monument, queued up in McDonald’s. He took his fish sandwich and sat, hunched in a plastic seat, feeding the hot potato bits into his mouth. He felt vulnerable in the fluorescent light. In such settings he had spent many moments of his childhood. The bright plastic seats of home. He pictured Jan across from him, pointing a pencil-thin french fry at him, smiling. Her look is so playful, like he remembered from their years in St. Louis. He hasn’t seen that mischievous, lopsided smile in a while. And where was his?

What would she make of that? “Your subconscious is telling you something.” He didn’t see how she came to that conclusion (in his head). But maybe her fast-food avatar had a point?

That night after dinner, Jan called. “We should get you back here,” she said. “My morning walk today? I passed the place we stayed last year.” Then a pause. She asked how Bangkok was feeling. Was it safe for her to return?

He couldn’t read her intent through the receiver. Did she want to come back? “It feels safe to me, getting chauffeured around,” he said, “I mean I’m a farang, right? I have an international visa, we’re not harassed. We’re not the targets.”

“Right, but still,” she said. “Things happen.”

He sighed. “Right. But you hear what I’m saying? There’s the bad stuff you see in the news and there’s our life far away from the Royal Green.”

“Not that far. Maybe six miles, not a long ride. And my parents see the stuff on the Green, they stress, and then I hear about it.” After a pause, she said, “What do you want, Dee?”

Dmitri put his left hand on the counter and splayed his fingers on the cool stone. “I want you to feel safe.” He added, “I want you to come back.”

To learn more about the university’s role in the arrests, he began listening carefully to exchanges on campus, in the hallway on the way to the office, in the cafeteria where he got lunch. He heard rumors of camouflage-painted trucks in convoys headed for the western border, carrying bodies.

Then came the day the following week that Dmitri stepped outside for his ride to the office, and the office car pulled up, and he was met by a different driver. He asked where Daeng was, and the young man didn’t know. When they reached the office, Tinya was pacing outside the entrance. Dmitri approached and saw her face was drawn taut.

“Daeng is in the hospital,” she told him. “He was in a place he shouldn’t have been.” She blinked back tears while Dmitri stood, dumbstruck. He asked which hospital, and if he could get a driver to take him. Tinya nodded.

When they got there, it was a building that Dmitri would not have taken for a hospital if he rode past it, stuck between two rows of stores on an industrial artery. It was faceless and rather dingy, like a public factory. He walked in, looking for an information desk but found no central hub. He wandered deeper into the building until he pushed through a door and faced a hall where soldiers in camo uniforms stood at the doorways of every other patient room. There several people were moaning, or crying. One voice (male? female?) was keening in pain. He felt the chaos. As the soldiers turned to him, Dmitri turned and retraced his steps.

That’s when he nearly ran right into Dr. Nunti. He pushed a swinging door, rushing to leave the ward, and she was approaching from the other side. This time she was in a dark uniform. She regarded him with a startled frown.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said. Dmitri apologized and explained he was trying to find the patient information desk. She pointed over her shoulder. “That way.”

He had begun walking in that direction when, behind him, Nunti said, “But there are no farang patients here.”

He turned, nodding in profile to show that he understood. “It’s a friend,” he said.

“Seems unlikely,” she said, not looking up from what appeared to be a clipboard. He felt dismissed, like when he had visited her office.

“He was at the protests,” Dmitri said, his voice rising in exasperation. He stopped himself from adding, “for chewing gum.”

Then she looked up. She walked briskly back toward him. “Listen,” said in a lower voice. She approached as if she knew him. “Don’t say that when you ask about him. Just give his name. Say you don’t know what’s wrong with him. They’ll have to check all the intakes then. Who knows where they put him.”

She turned and disappeared through the swinging door.

He found Daeng in the cardiac ward. Dmitri couldn’t get a grasp on why, but the room number the nurse gave him was correct: a shared room with a wide window and four starched hospital beds. In one of them was the rigid face of his driver. Daeng was lying on an incline, his neck in a brace, his eyes and forehead smeared in purples and blues.

As Dmitri approached, Daeng’s eyes lifted and a woman in the chair beside the bed, Dmitri guessed his wife, turned to wai the foreign visitor. “Mr. Meetri,” said Daeng in a low voice. “You have come.” Something about his expression signaled embarrassment.

Dmitri shook his head and smiled to lighten the mood. His tendency to skewer seriousness with a joke felt overwhelming, but not appropriate. “My friend,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

Daeng smiled in the Thai manner of using light laughter to signal discomfort. The woman maintained her pose, palms together, deep bow. When she sat up, she too was smiling.

“You look a little rough,” Dmitri continued. “I’d hate to see the other guy.”

“He looks worse,” the driver said. Dmitri eyed him closely. What deep cover this guy gave to his ember of humor, Dmitri thought.

“I guess they ran out of beds, putting you in the heart ward. Have they told you when you’ll get out?” Dmitri blinked as if scrolling past all the questions he wanted to ask. Who did this to you? What happened?

Daeng didn’t reply. “We made ourselves known,” he said. His wife stared at him, it was impossible to say whether from fear or love.

Dmitri gave a slight nod. The room felt too open for this conversation, even a light-hearted version— there were three other patients in various states of consciousness. Yet standing there, looking down at his coworker in the hospital bed, sallow in a blue-patterned hospital gown, Dmitri felt suddenly close to the man and his wife. “How is your heart?” he said.

Daeng nodded curtly, his lips pressed flat.

“Let me know how I can help,” Dmitri said.

A small smile of acknowledgement creased Daeng’s face, as if it were painful and caused a twinge.

“And your friend?” Dmitri asked.

Daeng, straight-faced, simply stared ahead and blinked. Their conversation was ending. “And Madam Meetri?” he said, his brow knitted.

“She’s fine, thank you,” Dmitri said. He pictured Jan at a batik studio in Bali. Daeng looked expectant, as if waiting for Dmitri to share more, about why she had stayed away so long. As if probing Dmitri’s fears. “Any message for Tinya and the others?”

“Please apologize for my absence. I will be in soon.” A sheepish smile. “Then Supro can take a break.”

Daeng’s wife said something in Thai that Dmitri didn’t catch. Daeng added, “My wife thanks you for coming.” She smiled and nodded at Dmitri, a gesture across the language chasm. Dmitri wai-ed, turning from her to Daeng, then glanced around the room and turned to go.

He couldn’t explain why the brief visit seemed significant. They had exchanged no real information. Had the driver understood about his and Jan’s crumbling relationship all along? Seeing Daeng in the hospital bed, Dmitri felt a kind of acknowledgment. After so many meaningless non-conversations to and from campus, they had seen each other here. Maybe this was the coda to Wiio’s law? “…succeeds only by chance.” Maybe this was that chance.

Dmitri was nearly at the hospital entrance when he heard his name. He turned and saw Dr. Nunti. “Did you find your friend?” she said.

“Yes, thank you for that advice.”

“Not at all,” she said. There was an awkward moment. He noticed her eyes were moist.

“Are you visiting someone here too?” Dmitri asked.

She bit her lip, regained composure. “They’re not anymore.”

He started to apologize. She shook her head emphatically. “You know what you need to do?”

Dmitri saw her professional hauteur fall away, her gaze now was raw. “What do you mean?” he said.

“You have a role, remember,” she said.

He winced, recalling her first declaration of that. Weren’t they past that? “I might do better with a press badge. They say it’s a bad idea for farang to butt into Thai affairs.”

Her eyes narrowed. “But you’re already here.”

He was backpedaling. It felt validating, what she was saying. “Well, even that could change,” he said. Under his breath he added, “Though I suppose you have a point.” He recalled Daeng and his wife, heads bowed. But Nunti was gone.

The news broadcast conflicting reports of casualties. Some outlets said that hundreds were dead or missing, the main newspapers reported only a few dozen. Even getting updates from the hospital staff proved impossible. Then a few days later, Tinya appeared in Dmitri’s office doorway, her hands templed in a distracted pose.

“Do you have a moment?” she said. She paused. “Something has come up.” Dmitri motioned for her to come in, but she lingered in the doorframe.

“I’m so sorry Daeng won’t be able to drive you,” she said in a hesitant monotone. “It’s his funeral ceremony.”

Daeng’s funeral? Dmitri felt light-headed. He had no hint that the man was close to dying. Tinya went on explaining in the same even tone where the event would be, how and when Dmitri should plan to attend. Was she dissociating? Dmitri wondered as she spoke. Was this conversation at all normal? He felt his neck stiffen at the notion of a formal Thai funeral—he’d never been to one—but he focused on her explanation. And he saw at the edge of her eye a wet glimmer.

The next day, wearing the prescribed long-sleeve white shirt, Dmitri road in the car with the other driver, Supro, to the temple. Supro said nothing during the entire drive.

They reached a quiet neighborhood and the temple Wat Phra Mongkut at dusk. The place felt like a small town with children playing in the road. Walking into the temple compound, Dmitri saw Daeng’s wife and felt a strange dual role of manager and personal connection to this couple with whom he’d exchanged only a few dozen words. He saw the three younger people sitting with her, they must be the children. There were folding chairs set up in several rows, and in the small sanctuary flower arrangements hung from the ceiling around the edge of the room, up to the white casket in front. To the left of the casket, a framed photo of Daeng, looking stiffly directly into the camera, stood on an easel.

Was the older girl beside Daeng’s widow their daughter? She held her mother’s hand tenderly. From her outfit and haircut, bangs wedged on an angle like the students on campus, she appeared to be an undergraduate. It shifted his picture of Daeng and his wife, of their hopes for their children. Seeing the two together made his stomach twist with sadness.

Dmitri was headed for one of the folding chairs but Supro motioned toward a small air-conditioned room off to the side, with several large wooden chairs. This was some kind of VIP green room, and struck Dmitri as a typical postcolonial trope: the white guy getting special treatment. But it may have also been due to the perception that Dmitri was Daeng’s boss. It stirred feelings of being an imposter; Dmitri sat erect in the wooden chair. A local in his forties sat beside him and introduced himself as Daeng’s brother-in-law. He spoke English well, and explained patiently some things Dmitri needed to know about paying respects. Dmitri did as he was told: kneeled before the casket, bowing just once. After Dmitri returned to his seat, the brother-in-law told him about Daeng’s mother, who raised eight children on her own, selling fried snacks and ice cream in order to feed the kids.

Four young, head-shaven monks filed into the room through the glass doors, a line of golden-clad figures, followed by a youth who began chanting a drone that mingled with theirs. Each monk held a large blue fan before his face. The chanting lasted ten minutes, with all attendees bowing deeply with hands steepled together. This scene felt like an incantation, a comforting echo of the church liturgy of his childhood but more salving. Part of that, no doubt, was the fact he understood none of what was being said.

Tinya had come and sat in the chair on the other side of Dmitri, and took up the role of explaining customs. As the ceremony was winding down, she said, “It is time to give the monks their offering.”

The ceremonial white guy role again. Dmitri was guided to stand before the row of monks, kneel and wai the monk before him, bow and present a basket of food. Dmitri felt like a total fraud trapped in a kabuki role, kneeling and bending forward. Also, it felt strangely meaningful.

Afterward, Dmitri bowed to Daeng’s wife and then followed Supro out into the night toward the car as it started to rain. He wished he knew more phrases in Thai that he could have said in consolation. Even in English, he had almost none. My deepest condolences. May his memory be a blessing. Tinya appeared at his elbow and asked for a ride. “It’s on the way,” she said. She conferred with Supro in Thai, and rode in the front seat. At one point on the highway, she turned to speak to Dmitri in the backseat. In a dreamy, almost nostalgic voice she said, “I remember during the war, all the trucks would come on the highway from the airport with the bodies.”

Before he could react, she went on: “They were dripping, they had them on ice. The melting ice and the blood dripping from the trucks onto the pavement.” Still dreamy sounding, her voice rising at the absurdity and horror. Trucks zoomed past them in the night, the shadows that brought the memory back.

Back at home, Dmitri wondered how Daeng had gotten himself to the Royal Green that day of the protest. Had he taken a river taxi downstream and docked, then walked the last bit through the narrow old-town alleys? Surely he didn’t drive. Would he have stood on a bus like any other pedestrian, waiting for his stop? Did he walk from the bus stop, looking to meet up with someone at the Green? Dmitri followed him in his head, searching for signs of how Daeng approached the unknowable future.What did he expect to find? What did he hope to accomplish?

Maybe the brother-in-law would have told him some of these things if Dmitri had asked. Maybe his friend at Shiva Alternatives had a brochure that would shed some light. Maybe none of those things mattered. When he imagined sharing these questions with Jan, he heard her sigh, as she did at news from the protests.

Unable to sleep, Dmitri went to a small filing cabinet in their bedroom and pulled out a folder. He took it to the dining room table and laid out its contents: a generic will template, filled out; a page with key information on account numbers and health policies; and a clipping – a headline from the date of the coup six months before, when the junta seized power. Dmitri wasn’t sure why the clipping was in with the formalities of their expat life, but looking at it now, it seemed a vital piece of information.

The cone of light from a floor lamp included the clipping and the photocopy of his passport page. Six months now. He looked back; it was five months ago when he and Jan began having small squabbles about stupid things. He was used to ascribing these to the stress of expat life. The first he noticed it might be more was just before her sister came, a couple of months ago. He thought about Daeng, and tried to recall any changes with him in the weeks leading up to the demonstrations, any words exchanged, observations about politics, the weather, the sunlight.

He packed up the folder again, stuffed it back in the file cabinet. He played some John Prine, then went to bed. Again came the dream-like imagery from the McDonald’s episode, a video game character pounding down the track, racing, and mirror images on either side. Was Dmitri shifting from the central figure to a side character? Was he becoming? Where were they going? God, he was delirious. But he had already made, he felt, a kind of promise.

3.

The next morning, instead of going to the office, he asked Supro to drop him at Lumpini Park. He decided he would walk to the Royal Green from there.

Lumpini was one of the few Buddhist names Dmitri knew, the birthplace of Siddhartha. The name held a kind of mythic power in the grimy center of the concrete metropolis. He heard it in the way that Bangkok residents savored the word, a kind of comfort food.

He had heard it in Supro’s voice as the driver banked off the highway and rolled from the exit ramp into stalled traffic, saying, “I’ll stop at Lumpini corner.” The intersection off the ramp was snarled near a schoolyard where parents were dropping off uniformed children. Dmitri and the driver barely exchanged another word before Dmitri launched from the passenger seat and skipped to the curb. The morning was gray around the edges but deep blue straight overhead.

He walked through the green park conscious of his breathing: a slow intake, the hold, and the whoosh of exhaling. He felt composed and his body felt good.

The Royal Green was an hour’s walk west of the park. Rama IV Road at that hour was choked with yellow-and-green taxis, hulking white commercial trucks, and shiny dark sedans of people who lived in the highrises out Sukhumvit Road.

To choke off protestors’ downtown access, the mayor had closed the monorail stations, and brown-uniformed police blocked the entrances. On foot, Dmitri passed department stores, cafes, electronics outlets and steakhouses along the way, and beggars who staked out the overpasses, as real-estate conscious as any retailer.

From the park’s edge, he soaked in the lawn and trees, the lake with paddle boats tied together at the shore, bobbing patiently for weekenders who would never come. Dmitri could stay here and have the park to himself for the day. Soak up the vibe, then hail a cab back home.

That day when he was with Jan in the park and they were eating noodles on the bench and she was telling him her frustrations while he stared dumbly at those tethered boats, he had imagined the two of them pedaling one out into the center of the lake. In his mind, they were laughing at their ridiculous bicycle motions over water, dumping the weight of their worries into the lake. He saw themselves actually miming the opening of a heavy sack and turning it upside down, shaking it out on the ripples stirred in the light breeze.

Now even the memory of that daydream felt somehow obscenely escapist or colonial or something.

Coming to join the protestors was more serious than being a witness. His presence was a political act. His job required political neutrality and this was not. He couldn’t discuss this with his boss, of course, but the afternoon before Daeng’s funeral, Dmitri had broached the subject with Tinya. Dmitri had harrumphed that he didn’t understand how there wasn’t wider protest against the junta, and said, “For Daeng I should do more than just show up at his funeral.” Tinya shot him a look of fear. “He did more than he should have,” she said. “He put us all in risk. You know the term loose cannon? They don’t know the damage they do, rolling around and exploding.”

A low roar now came from the direction of the Royal Green. It seemed to rise from the treetops before him, but the source must have been further away. Dmitri wasn’t sure if the noise came from the unamplified crowd or if it had the electric crackle of a speaker and a P.A. system. Walking through this refuge in the middle of the city, the low rumble felt ominous. He became a bit terrified.

In his pocket he clutched a dark blue bandanna, flimsy protection against teargas and batons. He wondered if this path he was taking toward the Green, the Rama IV road and side streets, would also be his escape route when things went tits up. On the sidewalk at an overpass he passed another child begging with her mother, and put a 20-baht note in her cup.

He passed on, and felt a sense of purpose carry him forward. He was part of something larger, even if it wasn’t really his fight. He wasn’t Thai, but thought if democracy in the U.S. were facing an existential threat, he would be out in the streets. But he was here, and had to admit his presence was optional.

He heard Jan’s voice, warm and reasonable, when he talked about going to bear witness: “Do they need you there? Does it really advance the cause to have a farang detained?” It made her feel physically sick to think of him in a jail like the immigration detention facility where she had done volunteer work, helping detainees get what they needed. “What good would it do?” she said.

Dmitri wasn’t sure.

She had booked her flight, finally, returning to the States with her sister. She had gone back and forth for weeks on the idea of returning to Bangkok. Her sister had prevailed. “Until the State Department revises its safety alert,” she had said. Jan sounded calm, the trip had given her distance and perspective. He could hear her concern in her voice.

He pulled out the dark blue bandanna from his pocket. The moment he tied it over his face, he knew, he would become a target for police attention. Was he a reckless person? What had Daeng done in his position?

Daeng thought, as he approached the Green: Am I a reckless person? I have family.

Dmitri couldn’t make out the words over the sound system. The sounds from blocks away were a muddy sludge. Walking in that direction, he didn’t feel reckless, he felt determined. He watched a flood of traffic come toward him, and saw at the edge of the road a young man in a wheelchair, rolling himself against the tide of headlights. Dmitri felt a pang of fear for the young man’s safety but as he got closer he could see the other had no such fear. He was pumping his arms furiously on the wheel rims, powering himself onward toward the Green, unfazed by cars passing within inches of his hand.

Dmitri greeted the young man in Thai, and received a nod in response. Dmitri asked if it would be more safe coming onto the sidewalk?

“Nowhere is safe!” the other muttered. Unspoken: Stupid farang. True enough.

“You are going to join the demonstration?” said Dmitri, carefully pronouncing the word from Pali-Sanskrit.

The man continued pumping, nodded. Raised an eyebrow. “You?”

Dmitri was abreast of him now, matching the wheelchair pace. “Yes. Going for a friend.”

The young man glanced in Dmitri’s direction without letting up his pumping. “Your friend doesn’t need you now,” he said.

“Look, friend,” Dmitri said, a little louder than he expected, “can you manage with this crowd? It could get dangerous.”

“Who’s your friend?” said the man, meeting his gaze.

Dmitri recognized something about his expression—the calm yet challenging directness so rare in this country. It was familiar and disconcerting. Nunti, it was her expression when he had pointed out the brochure mistake. Clear, dead-eyed, observant.

Suddenly Dmitri realized that he would see her this morning, most likely. She would be at the edge of the crowd, watching, scanning for her son among the speakers and activists. Or maybe she would be busy at a white tent emblazoned with the Red Cross, assisting wounded or tear-gassed people, providing first aid or handling intake information, wielding a clipboard and wearing a white coat.

Or perhaps the professor would be standing atop a makeshift barricade, feet planted to steady herself, waving the striped Thai flag aloft like Liberty in the Delacroix image of the French Revolution. She would make herself a bulwark. Sure, nonprofits like Shiva Alternatives charged the ramparts and demanded action in the name of the disenfranchised. For most, it was show. Dmitri felt an equally important role was played by system-type workers, plugging away at bland research that addressed the needs of those disenfranchised and the sidelined farmers of Asia. Dmitri had seen many of them in the three years he’d worked and traveled here: saronged men and women in the hills of Sri Lanka, survivors haunted by a brutal, decades-long civil war. In Indonesia, he walked with a knot of head-scarved Balinese women at the fringe of a field (a few miles from the rice-terrace beautified hotel where Jan and her sister were now staying, where he had stayed with her in happiness before), talking about planting a windbreak to shield their vegetables from the killing winds.

In his mind’s eye, these scenes churned against a background of forests and his powerpoint slides, strung together by wisps of tear gas. Those fields linked him and his trek trudging city pavement to the Green. Of course he would be there! His life had been pointing to this. Even Prof Nunti played a role in getting him here. They kept on to where Rama IV turned into Progress Road (Charoen Krung), approaching the palace.

 He and the young man had almost reached the intersection when suddenly the crowd noise swelled to a dull roar. Dmitri saw a tide of thousands of human forms, with white police helmets bobbing like buoys above a current of black hair and varied headgear. As Dmitri’s eyes adjusted to the chaotic motion, he made out the hammering of batons and a clatter of hard clear shields. The sound sent a jolt to his system, his neck and shoulders.

He turned and saw people following behind them. They too appeared curious to see what the crowd was up to. One couple appeared younger, maybe late twenties. Dmitri observed he was the only farang in the wide scene. He was an idiot.

“Can you manage?” said the young man in the wheelchair. It took Dmitri a moment to realize he was talking to him. Before he could answer, a rock landed on the pavement at his feet.

As the young guy gave his rims another spin, a smoking cannister rolled into one of the wheels. Dmitri’s brain registered teargas as his eyes started to prickle. A swarm of bees were attacking his retinas. He thought of kicking it away, but saw that he might topple the wheeled man if he did, so he turned and ran, grabbing the bandanna from his pocket. The wheeled man careened one way, the centripetal force appeared to raise him up on one rim as he made a turn, and Dmitri ran at an angle as he sprinted the other. He was making for an open alley, one not clogged with vending carts and people. His feet found footing where none seemed to be. His body had kicked into gear, leaving his mind back in the plumes of smoke unfurling across the street.

But his mind back there soberly took in the advancing police with their plastic shields, truncheons raised high, then swinging down. The stakes. He became aware of a hiccupping, gasping sound pursuing him as he pounded forward. It was coming from him, he realized, he was struggling for air. Another alley appeared and he raced through it.

Running, dodging, his mind fixed on those truncheons and Nunti’s voice, telling him he’d been spared. By whom? “Without blinkers,” she said. He looked around and saw so many others running too, fleeing. He slowed to a jog, took in a deeper breath. Was this really a step toward witnessing?

A map clicked into place in his head, with streets pointing back home that he did not have time to question. At the far end, there was the wide boulevard beside the canal, which he could follow to Democracy Monument. There he might find a taxi willing to move for an extra pink note.

Minutes later he was in one, watching the streets roll past, his hair pasted to his forehead, bandanna stuffed back into his jacket, soaked with sweat and smelling of teargas. His eyes were still stinging, blinking furiously. The driver eyed him in the rearview, his worried face examining Dmitri’s.

He would get out at the Buffalo bridge intersection and walk back to his apartment. Lay low for the rest of the weekend. He had to document what he’d seen. Maybe things had unfolded the way they were meant to. He wouldn’t tell Jan about the demonstration yet–it would just upset her. And for what purpose? When she returned from the trip with her sister, they would start things over. She’d cancel her ticket home.

But he would check his notes against every article he could find about the demonstration, listen to every podcast, and in the brutal crackdown that followed, he would scan reports for names of the missing. Would he recognize any? What happened to the young man in the wheelchair?

He was asking himself that a week later, while writing up a few pages about that day, which he decided he would send to the Bangkok Times, the English-language paper. He would send it anonymously, to avoid blowback for the office. But word needed to get out about what happened. He had it mostly written and was shutting down his computer for the evening when Tinya appeared in the doorway. “I wanted to ask,” she said, “if you might visit Daeng’s family this weekend.”

Dmitri looked at her and considered how she had asked. He saw that it was the right thing. So he filed an overtime request for Supro and on Saturday, the driver came and drove Dmitri to the riverside neighborhood. They arrived at Daeng’s family’s house amid a rat-a-tat of jackhammers. The city’s transformation didn’t stop for weekends. Dmitri asked the driver, as he turned off the engine, if he would come in and translate if needed. Supro nodded.

In the end, no translation was needed. Dmitri rang the doorbell, waited, and rang again. When nobody came, he looked around, unsure whether to leave a note. As they walked back to the car, Dmitri could see into the temple compound across the lane. There beneath a filigreed awning of the temple, a small group of people gathered. The temple’s facade was covered with pale plaster where bits of glass and candy-colored mirror fragments glittered. The dancing light had a shimmering effect like a mirage. 



 

BIO

David Taylor’s fiction has appeared in Rio Grande Review, Washington City PaperGargoyleJabberwockThe MacGuffin, and anthologies, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His debut story collection, Success: Stories, received the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize. His nonfiction book Soul of a People (Wiley) about the WPA writers, provided the basis for a documentary feature of that title and for The People’s Recorder, nominated for 2025 Best Indie podcast. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University.







Polaris

by Denisha Naidoo



It is not my father’s funeral and yet my legs wobble and threaten to succumb to gravity. Memories infiltrate the fog in my head and blur the divide between the past and the now. I am lost in thoughts that leave me unmoored, directionless.

I lean on the brick wall for support. My eyes half-focus on something on the sidewalk—an old wallet, scuffed and worn. A passerby kicks it.

“Dissociative trauma response,” my therapist calls it.

The bruise on my forearm is real. A purple badge where I pinch myself. I am awake.

In my dreams I am four maybe five. My father is still alive—strong, robust. I inhale his scent—the smoky hint of sandalwood, I run a finger along the ropey muscles of his forearm—the childhood scar he never explains and sink my hands into the thick silky waves of his ebony hair. I dream of the desert, red sand, sunset glow and the brilliance of stars in a vast inky blue night sky. In this place, I can feel forever. I hear nothing and sense the fullness of space above us juxtaposed against the firmness of sand beneath our feet.

He draws patterns in the sand—the stars, the constellations.

“Polaris,” he says and points to the heavens. “To navigate by.”

I look to the stars and find joy.

The rough brick beneath my fingertips calls me back to the present. I am as unnoticed as the discarded wallet—a relic of someone else’s loss.

Feet nudge the wallet one way and then another. It travels at the mercy of fate. A pair of brogues kick it in my direction. Black boots complete the final pass until the wallet stops at my feet.

I slide down the wall to take a closer look. The leather, soft and scratched is curved to the shape of someone’s body. No one notices when I pick it up. Bereft of money and credit cards, it weighs nothing at all. I gently turn it over in my hands. Grains of red sand fall onto the bone white sidewalk.

Longing slides down my spine. I run my fingers through the wallet and find nothing. I hold it to my nose and inhale the scent of warm leather.

When darkness descends, I look to the sky. Polaris winks back.



BIO

Denisha Naidoo is a South African Canadian physician psychotherapist, poet and writer, who lives in Ontario, Canada with her dog Maverick. Her work has appeared in Killer Nashville Magazine, Amazing Stories, Gramarye, PRISM International, Passager Books, Prairie Fire, The Temz Review, The New Quarterly, Open Minds Quarterly, The New Quarterly, and Ladies Briefs: A Short Anthology, and others.

Website: https://denishanaidooauthor.com








Watches

by Nia Crawford



A lot of things don’t exist here: food, work, and sleep to name a few. The loss of those things weren’t hard to get used to, but the absence of time was. No calendars. No watches. No clocks. Here, we just exist, like the wind. Like smoky film in the air. We’re spirits barely visible to the human eye.

Speaking of humans, we love them. We used to be them. But now, all we do is watch them. We watch, but we don’t “watch over.” There’s a big difference between the two, you know.

My wife and I arrived here together, but we don’t know when because of the time thing. We watch our progeny; hoping to interact with our ancestors, one day. But we’re told that’s not how this place works.

We watch Isha a lot. She’s our great-grandchild, and we remember her because we saw her regularly during our earthly existence. Even back then, she was more entertaining than Steve Harvey on Family Feud.

We love to see her interact with her friend Jae; my wife and I dubbed her the pushover. It’s super entertaining when Jae “protects” her “peace.” Like when she sees Isha’s face light up her Android, then lowers the volume. Jae thinks she’s quietly ignoring Isha. It’s so foolish because Isha would never think anyone would ignore her, so why be “quiet” about it?

Not long ago, Isha went looking for an old college buddy who stopped responding to her texts, calls, and Instagram messages. Believing the friend was in peril, Isha decided to knock on the girl’s door to see for herself.  Traffic was nuts, so she rented one of those electric scooters, rode in the Maryland Ave bike lane, and documented every segment of the trip. My wife and I laughed at the foolish girl pulling out her selfie stick for a mini-photo shoot in Baltimore’s busiest bike lane. Isha arrived at the woman’s door an hour later and knocked real hard. When her former friend flung open the custom solid wood door and scolded her for showing up uninvited, Isha tried to explain the emergency, that she thought the friend was in peril because she had not heard from her.

The friend was too angry to explain that Isha’s uninvited visit was another example of her bad personality. She called Isha self-righteous, self-absorbed, and ugly. That girl was either blind or real mad, because our great grand was far from ugly, so much so that her hairstylist never charged her as long as she kept her hair short. Every visit, without fail, the practitioner said, “No hair should cover any part of your beautiful face.”

That might be one reason Isha’s former friend resented her so much. Who knows? One thing was clear: that girl hated Isha. She tried to slam the heavy wood door in Isha’s face, but the door was too old and too warped. Nevertheless, Isha got the message and bawled real tears on the porch, not knowing she was being watched on the Ring cam. My wife and I got a kick out of watching someone watch the same person we were watching.

Days later, when Isha told Jae the story, she asked if she deserved it, if she was selfish and a bad person. Jae was the type to euphemize a situation to death to avoid sharing an uncomfortable truth, so she lied.

My wife and I got a real kick out of that.

A month later, Isha texted Jae, “Call me. It’s an emergency.”

I knew this was going to be good, so I alerted my wife and we watched as Jae decided what to do. We weren’t surprised she ignored Isha. She remembered the last few Isha emergencies, which were a ride to the grocery store that’s five blocks away or help squeezing into a dress that’s two sizes too small.

We thought about spazzle, the dust spirits used in the past to give earthlings a push. If we had it, we’d push Jae to be honest with Isha, but not mean like the old college buddy was. That would make for a better Watch for me and my wife. But Jae was left to her own devices, so she did nothing.

By evening, Isha texted: “Jae, it’s urgent. Call me!!!”

Jae dialed, and Isha picked up on the first ring.

“My house is in foreclosure!”

She explained that her mother forged her signature on bank applications, took the equity out of her house, and never made a payment. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Isha was the last to know. Her sister knew, her brother knew, and her mother’s husband knew.

Her mom did it to pay her medical bills, and the whole thing had been going on for over a year.

Isha sighed, “Can you believe it?”

We could because we saw Isha’s mom, our granddaughter, sign all those confusing papers. We saw the bank lady notarize the documents.

Jae asked Isha what she was gonna do about it.

“File charges against her and sue her. My mom’s going to jail and will lose every asset she has. I’m going after her husband too! Might go after my sister too since she knew about it but didn’t say anything. She’s an accessory!”

My wife and I got a good chuckle out of that one while Jae looked perplexed. She wasn’t sure if accessory worked like that, but she kept her doubts to herself. Isha talked for the next thirty minutes without taking a breath. Finally, she paused and Jae interrupted with some made-up excuse to get off the phone.

Three weeks later, Isha’s face lit up Jae’s phone as she drove to work. When Jae didn’t answer, Isha texted her.

“Call me. It’s an emergency!”

My wife and I tuned in, giving the humans our full attention.

Jae ignored the text and emailed Isha to let her know she was working in a highly secured government building, a SCIF, the whole day and couldn’t use her phone. Email would be spotty too (a lie), but Isha could explain her emergency through email, and Jae would do her best to assist.

None of the lies mattered, because the inevitable spiral happened when Jae learned that Isha’s sister had gone to see her to demand she drop the lawsuit against their mother. Words quickly turned to violent actions, and Isha’s sister crawled to the door holding her side, putting pressure on a flesh stab wound. That was before she stumbled down Isha’s pristine marble steps that we saw her bleach two days before. When Isha looked out the window and saw the sullied steps, we heard her mumbling about the amount of bleach it’d take to clean the stains.

The police and ambulance showed up at the same time, and Isha refused to let either one in. My wife and I wanted to spazzle Isha to push her to open the door, but we don’t have access to the magic dust, so we had to watch the authorities pry open the front door.

Jae found all of this out on her lunch break when she checked her phone. Oh, her face! It went from consternation (after seeing the notice for twenty missed calls and fifteen texts from Isha) to resolve (after learning Isha’s sister was still in the hospital) very quickly.

Jae took off the rest of the day and went straight to the hospital to visit the sister. She got her to agree to drop the charges. Her last stop was the jail where she waited for hours until everything was sorted out, then she drove Isha home.

If there was time for spazzle, it was now. But time nor spazzle exists in our spirit world. If it did, we’d mix the dust with Isha’s self-absorption and sprinkle a lot on Jae to toughen her up. Then we’d mix it with Jae’s over-giving and sprinkle just a tad on Isha to soften her. Just a little. That would make for a more authentic friendship. At the very least, my wife and I would be able to enjoy better Watches. Two self-absorbed friends made for a much better Watch than one!



BIO

Nia Crawford is a writing instructor who writes from Baltimore and Philadelphia.  She’s taught writing to middle schoolers and college students for over 20 years.  She’s been published in Ink Nest Poetry, BODY, Necessary Fiction, and Killens Review of Arts in Letters. Nia is also a real estate agent, and she loves volunteer work and community-based organizations. 







Leave Them Wanting More

by C. Inanen



I’ll tell you right off, I love Old John Otum like a brother but working with him can be awfully frustrating. Sometimes it’s like coming into a movie when it’s half-way over. There’s stuff going on I don’t know about, important stuff.

We’ve been playing together for more years than I care to remember. On stage, he’s in charge. After all, he’s the big name, the draw, and the lead singer most of the time. You can say he runs the show, literally. Off stage I handle the rest of it, bookings, transportation, scheduling, the money end of things, all that. It’s sort of a partnership that works out really well. We’re both of us getting up there in years, too. Old John will never see 70 again. I’m not far behind. We’re kind of set in our ways. Don’t rock the boat, you know?

I guess I should mention the third member of our trio too, Ruby Blue, our drummer, especially since she sort of kicked it off. She’s sitting in the passenger seat of my van, riding shotgun and eating a snow-cone. She’s 19 and used to be in the Punk band wWo. You pronounce that “woe.” Saying she’s really good doesn’t say half of it. Amazingly we all click. She brought something to us that maybe we’d been lacking or had gotten away from, vitality, energy, maybe a new perspective. What did we provide for her? Well, we were an established working band and we treated her like a professional when a lot of other people were treating her like a kid. I want to use the word value, there, but I don’t know exactly how. Saying we valued each other doesn’t seem right. Saying each of us were valuable to one another is close. Don’t ask me, I’m not good with words.  I made $60.41 for “Sausalito Monday Morning Blues” with Evicta Records about thirty years ago. The money was so disappointing the next good song I wrote I gave away to a friend, Lucille Tucker. That was “Only Counting Stars” and she recorded it on the B side of her album Heartaches and Broken Hearts. Even that one, it’s the walking bass line that makes the song. The lyrics are throw-away stuff.

We’d finished tonight’s two sets at the Garden Spot Tavern and were headed home. Old John had recently taken to sleeping on the floor in the back of the van with one of those pads that hikers and backpackers use. It’s the commercial model with only two seats. They’re made out of some lightweight material, I don’t know what, but you roll them up when you’re not using them and they weigh like ounces. Old John claimed it helped his back. I think he didn’t want to admit he was old and tired after a show.

Me? I’m KJ Butler, bluesman. I was driving the van when Ruby Blue asks me, “So what are we going to do up at Great Lakes?”

Here we go, middle of the movie. I looked at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told her.

“John told me tonight that we’re going up to the Great Lakes Naval Station in two weeks.”

I shook my head and looked back at the road just in time to see flaring brake lights in front of us. I applied the brakes hard and the SUV in front of us made a right hand turn without signaling. I honked my horn in appreciation. Ruby Blue stuck her hand out the window, showing them the black nail polish on her middle finger.

That woke John up. “Be careful,” he said. “I don’t want to wake up dead.”

“What’s this about going up to Great Lakes?” I asked him.

There was silence in the back of the van for a long time then he said, “I meant to tell you.” I could hear him draw in a deeper breath. “I’ve been talking to Navy Entertainment. They wanted us to do an audition. Some admiral or something. I’ve got his name and number written down at home.”

“Yeah?” I had my doubts about this already. Ruby Blue was listening closely.

“So I told him we don’t do auditions. He could pay us standard rates for a recording session.” He paused. I thought to myself he finally shows some sense to say that. Then he continued, “Or we’d do a show for them. He chose the show.”

I closed my eyes until I remembered I was driving. “In two weeks?” I asked.

“Yeah,” John said. “Friday night.”

“We play Friday nights at the Walk Right Inn,” I reminded him.

“Arnie can find somebody else,” John said. “They insisted. It was the only way they’d pay for a tour.”

“We’re going on tour?” Ruby asked. “Where?”

“Korea,” John told her. “United Service Organizations and Armed Forces Entertainment.”

“Wow,” Ruby said.

“Yeah, we need to talk about this,” I told him.

“Come on over tomorrow afternoon, after church. I’ll grill some hamburgers. Bring some potato chips.” John lived with his daughter, a round, friendly woman. He added after a bit, “And some tomatoes.”

“Can I come too?” Ruby Blue asked.

“You know how to make potato salad?”

“Sure, everybody knows how to make potato salad,” she told him. She might look like a radical Goth sometimes with her blue spiked hair and all that but somewhere deep inside her is Rebecca Barkowski, suburban teenager. “KJ will pick me up, my Toyota’s sick,” she added. This is how John Otum plans things.

Sunday I pull into Ruby Blue’s apartment complex and honk. I’d had to go to the store and buy the chips and tomatoes which is what I did instead of watching the White Sox game on the TV. Ruby comes bouncing downstairs on the run. Today she’s dressed conventionally, tan shorts, a tee shirt, baseball cap, sunglasses and her combat boots. She’s got plastic bowls in each hand. “Drive fast,” she says by way of greeting. “There’s ice cream in here. Peach.” I drive fast.

John’s daughter greets us at the front door. She’s still got her Sunday-goin’-to-church clothes on. “He’s out back,” she explains. “I’m joining you soon as I change. You must be Ruby,” she tells Ruby. They’ve never met.

“Yep,” Ruby Blue admits. She thrusts one of the bowls forward. “Put this in the freezer, OK? It’s ice cream, peach.”

“Oh my.” They’ll get along just fine.

John is out on the deck. The grill’s already fired up and the picnic table has paper plates, utensils, condiments and all that stuff. What’s lacking is something to drink but that’s rectified when John’s daughter emerges from the house with a six-pack of chilled Corona beer and a pitcher of lemonade. We talk as John grills the burgers. “How many hamburgers you want, Ruby?” he asks.

“I’m just medium hungry, not big hungry.” This apparently translates to two. She twists off a Corona cap and hands John the bottle. He works the spatula one-handed anyway.

“Setting aside the Korean tour you mentioned we can’t leave Arnie at the Walk Right Inn high and dry with just two weeks’ notice. He’s always been good to us.” I present my first objection.

“So find someone else to play in our place,” John tells me. “It’s one night. Then you don’t ask him, you tell him.” Ruby Blue’s head is on a swivel, looking at me, then John and back. She’s got her elbows on the table and her hands clasped.

“Easier said than done,” I told him. “First of all it’s two weeks and secondly everybody who’s any good is already busy on Friday night.”

“Work it out with him,” John says. “You’re making this harder than it is. Get my phone, will you honey? It’s on the counter.” John’s daughter heads into the house. “We’ll just see about this,” he tells me.

“Here, watch these,” he tells Ruby as he hands her the spatula, sitting down at the picnic table. He scrolls through his phone, presses buttons and then puts it up to his ear.

“Mabel,” he says. “John Otum. You busy at the moment?” He listens to the response on the other end. “You should have come out here, we’d have made a place for you. I’m cooking burgers. KJ and Ruby Blue are here. Got some cold Corona beer.” We can’t hear the other end of the conversation. “Listen, I need a favor” he tells Mabel. “Two weeks from now, Friday we’re going up to the Great Lakes Naval Base to do a concert for the sailor boys.” He looks at me. “KJ hasn’t found anybody to cover for us at the Walk Right Inn. You going to be in town?” Now it’s my fault. He leans back on the picnic table bench and opens the plastic container Ruby had brought, dips his finger into the potato salad and then licks it.”

“Use a spoon for god’s sake,” his daughter reprimands him, handing him a plastic spoon.

“Detroit?” John says into the phone. He listens again. “Well I appreciate it. You have a good time. Catch you later.” He clicks his phone off and looks at me. “I tried,” he tells me. “She’s playing in Detroit.”

“Who was that?” I ask him.

“Mabel Watkins,” he says.

“The Mabel Watkins?’ Ruby is amazed. “You pick up the phone, dial Mabel Watkins personal number on a Sunday, get her and ask her to cover for us?”

“Yeah” John tells her. “That’s good potato salad,” he adds. “You met her that time we were at Modern Studios. Known her a long time,” he thinks about that, “Since she was your age, maybe younger.”

Mabel Watkins is one of a handful of Blues and Gospel singers whose name is a household word. She plays stadiums and amphitheaters all over the world and the tickets aren’t cheap. She headlines and has sung at the Super Bowl and for the President. Her records go gold before they’re even released with pre-orders, and platinum after they’re available.

“So now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s dig in,” John tells us. “Smells good.” Apparently who’ll cover for us is off his radar and in my lap.

It was good. I hated to spoil the mood by introducing business but I had to ask, “What’s this about a tour to Korea?”

John defends himself by saying “It’s been a while since we’ve done a tour and Ruby’s never been. I thought it was about time so when I got to talking with a guy up at the VA hospital and he was with Navy Entertainment, one thing kind of led to another and I told him we were interested.”

“Where are we going?” Ruby asked. She was obviously excited by the idea.

“MWR Chinhae and MWR Busan,” John said. “Plus some aircraft carrier.”

“An aircraft carrier? Like, on the ship?” Ruby asked.

“That’s right,” he told her. “Audience will be 5000 or so.” She covered her face with her hands. I wasn’t surprised. I’d done Germany back in the Cold War days with the USO. Ruby was used to crowds of 100-200. Do girls still swoon, anymore? I don’t know. She did something anyway that involved placing her head down on the picnic table for a moment.

“Have we still got a press packet?” John asked me.

I shook my head. “Not a current one,” I told him.

“Got to get one, they’ll want that,” he says that like it’s something you go out and buy at the store. It’s not that easy.

On the way home Ruby is practically vibrating. “This is going to be so rad,” she says.

“Concentrate on a week from Friday,” I told her. “One step at a time, a show up at Great Lakes comes first.”

Wednesday night at our regular practice John outlines the song list we’ll perform at Great Lakes. We can play it the coming Friday and Saturday to get used to it. It’s got some changes, for example we open with two of Ruby’s drum solos, “Zulu Mzansi War Drums” and “Ruby Blue War Drums” instead of “Parchman Farm Blues.”  He also asks her “Have you got a title for that one you wrote that we close with?”

“Nuh-uh,” she replies.

“OK, we’ll call it “Angry Sea,” he tells her. No objections from Ruby, in fact it fits, a drum rhythm that emerges from a maelstrom. “How’s the press packet coming?” he asks me.

“Photographer will be there Saturday night for some new photos. Your daughter is helping me with some stuff from your scrapbook” I explain. The new photos will cost us $180 which I don’t mention.

“Do you know any sea shanties?” John asked me.

“No,” I gave him an emphatic answer. We’re not going to do sea shanties.

“I know “Goin’ Up to Boston,” Ruby says, trying to be helpful. I give her a look.

“We can do “It’s Early in the Morning,” he said. “That’ll work.” He looked at Ruby Blue. “What about the extended version of “Angry Sea,” can we do that?”

“The whole thing?” She thought about that. “Sure.” She beamed like a kid who had just gotten both a puppy and a pony for Christmas.

“Good, we’ll tell them that’s dedicated to the U.S Navy and they’re hearing the world premiere.”

“You can’t say it’s a world premiere if we’ve been playing it for six months,” I objected.

“Haven’t played the whole thing,” he pointed out. I just closed my eyes. There’s no point in arguing with John.

Friday night we debut the new set list at the Walk Right Inn. It was a little faster, a little more upbeat and went smooth as silk since they were all songs that had been in our repertoire. The crowd liked it. We stick with the abbreviated version of “Angry Sea” for now.

Arnie the owner listens to me as we’re packing up and takes it in stride. He tells me, “I can get Ronnie and the Revmasters for $200. They’re a Rockabilly group and they’ve got their own following. I’ll call them in the morning. I’ll advertise it as a Rock n Roll weekend.”

“I was just concerned with leaving you high and dry one weekend.”

“I appreciate that, KJ, I really do, but how about I stick to selling booze and entertainment and you stick to music?” I nodded in agreement, probably a good idea.

On the way home that night I tell Old John this latest development. Ruby Blue is all ears too. John says, “Arnie’s got it covered; good.” Then he sacks out on his foam sleeping pad. Ruby Blue and I match quarters for snow-cones. She wins, I have to pay and end up eating one. I don’t even like them. They hurt my teeth.

Saturday night the photographer shows up at the Garden Spot Tavern. We do two shows there almost every week. He’s pretty good; I’ve worked with him before. In fact he toured for nearly a year with a well-known Rock band, documenting their life, so he understands musicians and performances. He’s also a master of working with light and shadows. Something new is he’s got an assistant, a young guy who’s very serious and doesn’t say hardly anything. He does ask for Old John’s autograph, says it’s for his mother. The photographer tells me, “Tuesday” and reassures me he got some great shots. Despite what he says I’m not really reassured. I’ll have to see the photos to believe him. Both sets go well. The first one is more polished with the extra practice. The second one we generally do requests and is more unstructured. We have to talk back and forth among us onstage a lot more. It’s fine too. John’s good at that, smooth. He leads and Ruby and I follow.

Monday morning I call Captain Ernest Swisher at Great Lakes Naval Base. Takes me 26 minutes to get through to him but when I do he’s efficient and very helpful. He’s got a whole list of requirements we need to do before the upcoming show and the tour but it seems as if he’s used to this. I have to send stuff to him and to the Navy Entertainment Program Commander in Washington D.C. In addition to the press kit it includes a complete biography of members and positions of the group, photographs, website URL, contact information, a song list, equipment list, stage plot, a quality CD or DVD, and the tour we were interested in. Copies of everything also go to a navy.mil e-mail address. He thanks me for donating our time and efforts.

I tell him, “I’ve toured with the U.S.O. before and John served in Viet Nam. We both think it’s a worthy thing, you know?” He knows. I only see one glitch, we don’t have a website. We’re old school. Cotton Pickin’ Records has got one, though, with an artists section. That will do.

I call Ruby Blue so we can cobble together a complete biography for her. It takes an hour even though it’s very short but when we’re done we’re both satisfied with it. She sends me a frontal facial pic which will be suitable for the I.D. and then has second thoughts about it since she’s got all her facial piercings and so on in it. She takes a selfie, then and there and sends me that instead. It looks like a mug shot but that works. I assure her it’s fine, nobody looks at those anyway.

Monday is chewed up by doing all that. I have to call John’s daughter three times while she’s at work for help. It doesn’t bother her in the least. She knows how he does things. She grew up and has lived her whole life with it, a really nice, friendly woman.

Tuesday I get together with the photographer. All my worrying was for nothing. He’s got an assortment of photos which are fantastic. The hardest part is picking out which ones I really want, there are so many good ones. One shows every line and crease in Old John’s face, a closeup, and you can practically hear him singing the Blues when you look at it. Another one shows him standing with his head down looking at the floor, guitar strapped in place and both hands at his sides like he’s completely worn out. It’s great, it says something about how much he puts into a performance. That one we’ll use for sure. He’s got one of Ruby Blue in which the sweat is just pouring off of her face. The drumsticks are a blur. She plays with them between her fingers, like a Jazz drummer, not clenched in her fists like so many Rock drummers do. That picture captures some of her energy. He’s also got one where she’s drinking a beer, bottle and face both tilted up. Her neck is long and slender and leads you to look at her black leather vest. You can tell there’s nothing but Ruby underneath it. Corona could use that one for advertising, the label is positioned just right. I’m overwhelmed with the photos but my favorite one is all three of us, taken from the back. You pretty much just see our silhouettes, outlined by the lights. The crowd is just a blur in the background.

Everything gets sent off by midnight. I send an updated press packet to Cotton Pickin’ Records too. I’m getting too old for this stuff. I fall asleep on the couch.

Wednesday I get a call from Hubert at Cotton Pickin’ Records. I’m not even fully awake yet. You know how when you start out making eggs over and screw up and have to make them scrambled instead? I was eating scrambled eggs. “What’s this about you guys going up to Great Lakes Naval Base Friday?’ he asks me.

“Yeah, we’re going to do a set there Friday,” I explained.

“It’s about time you did something new,” he told me. “Unit sales have been low for quite a while.”

“I guess this is new,” I told him. “We’re planning a Korean tour next year in January. This sort of kicks it off, in a way.”

“Korea in January,” he says, “Gonna be cold. Listen I like the looks of your new drummer. What’s her name, Ruby Blue?”

“That’s her,” I agree. “She’ll do three solos Friday night.”

There’s a long silence on his end of the call. Finally he says, “Hard to sell drum solos.” I don’t say anything. “Tell you what,” he finally says, “My son is playing around with videography. I’ll send him up there Friday and maybe he can get some footage. If it sounds and looks any good maybe we can do some in-studio recording. Been a while for you guys.”

“Sure,” I tell him. “We’re going to do the world premiere of a new song, “Angry Sea” there.”

“I’ll be damned,” he says. I give him Captain Ernest Swisher’s contact information. My eggs are cold. I douse them with Cholula Hot Sauce and eat them anyway.

We practice Wednesday nights at a Ford dealership, Harmony Motors. That’s a good practice spot. We set up in the service garage. I’ve had that arrangement for quite a few years. Nobody cares how much noise we make or how late we stay. It was no different that Wednesday before the Great Lakes show. John and I are both firm believers in practice sessions and we’ve got it drilled into Ruby, too. She understands. It’s where we hone our sound.

That Wednesday was a walk-through of what we would do Friday night. Recently I’ve been picking up Ruby and John both, for practices, with the van. Tonight it was just Ruby. John said he was driving himself. I haul her drums, of course, a nice five piece Roland kit with “John Otum” on the front of the kick drum. They had been showing signs of use when we’d hooked up with her through an ad on Musicians Connections and with all the constant setting up, tearing down and hauling had developed more character. One thing different was the addition of a second crash cymbal that had belonged to our old drummer, Shakey Jake Allen. After he died unexpectedly, I guess it became mine. I gave it to Ruby. In a way it was kind of like he was still with us.

“Is your Toyota still sick?” I asked her, to make conversation.

“Yeah,” she tells me. “It goes like this,” and she demonstrates how it goes by rocking forward and backward and from side to side violently. “Not all the time, just when it wants to,” she adds. I think Ruby believes that cars and trucks have personalities like dogs and cats. It’s her first car. I commiserate.

I suppose you could say most of what we play are cover versions. These days that’s how it is when you play and sing Delta Blues. Somebody else has sung and played it before you, often a lot of different somebodies. There isn’t a lot of new music coming out of the Delta. Of course we’re not purists. We’re entertainers, musicians. We do some prison work songs and some Gospel, too. Most of what we play runs 2:45 or so in length, sometimes shorter but rarely longer. The reason for that is when recording first came about that was how much music you could fit on a 78 or 45 RPM record. They didn’t have LPs or extended tracks. John keeps the patter to a minimum, too. That’s his style. He doesn’t use 12 words when 3 will do and he rarely tells stories between songs like some front men. As a consequence our shows go pretty fast. The seven song set we had planned for Great Lakes timed out around 40 minutes and that included the 5 minute long “Angry Sea” drum solo. “Zulu Mzansi War Drums” ran about 1:45. “It’s Early in the Morning” goes 4:30 but of course that wasn’t written for a record, it came about to keep men working in rhythm. “Parchman Farm Blues” takes about 2:42. It averages out.  I guess John figures the music speaks for itself.

We were all set up when John finally arrived. He had an old man with him. I had to look twice before I finally recognized him. Frail, stooped and wrinkled it was Moses Berryman. He recognized me right away and his eyes lit up. He gave me a hug and I could feel his fragile bones in his arms. Moses used to be a damn good harmonica player. To be honest with you I figured he was dead, I hadn’t heard anything about him for maybe 10 years.

“KJ, boy” he said. His voice was just a whisper. “Good to see you.” Anybody who figures he can still call me boy is an old, old man.

“Moses is up from Georgia,” John told us. “Thought I’d bring him along.”

“Livin’ with muh granddaughter,” he whispered as explanation. Turning toward Ruby Blue he took her hand and shook it, very delicately. It reminded me of a bird. “Pleased to meetcha,” he told Ruby. “Moses Berryman,” he said. I don’t have any idea what she thought.

“Ruby Blue,” she told him.

“Blues drummer,” he said. You had to listen really closely to hear him. “You beat straw?” he asked.

She was taken aback. Beating straw is a very old technique where a second person beats a rhythm on a guitar body or even the neck while the first person plays. “John and I have tried it,” she finally answered.

“Not many do,” he told her, “these days.” Then he gave her a smile that showed most of his white dentures. He seated himself and was an audience of one as we went through the whole set list one more time.

After, we played “Midnight Special.” John looked over at him and asked, “What do you think?”

I figured John was just asking him for an opinion on our version. Moses nodded his gray head. As he did his eyes blinked open and closed, as if they were connected somehow. “Play it again,” he said. Then he took a harmonica out of his shirt pocket and wiped it on his sleeve, placing it in position against his lips.

We played it again. This time, at various spots in the song, Moses joined in, his harmonica eerie and distant, like the train in the song. It wasn’t much but it sure made a difference. It changed a regular old song into something that was haunting. When we were done he said, “I haven’t got much wind anymore but I can still do that.” I agreed. John looked pleased. Ruby seemed awe-struck.

We finished up the practice session and made arrangements for me to pick everyone up Friday then we loaded out the drums and so on. John and Moses took off. When they were gone Ruby told me “That old man with the harmonica; that was amazing.”

“Yeah,” I told her in total agreement. “Changes the whole song. Enhances the rest of it.”

“Did you know?” she asked.

“Nope,” I shook my head. “That’s all on John. It’s things like that which set him apart from you and me.” We were both pretty quiet on the way home.

Thursday I listed Moses Berryman as an addition to the members and positions of the group in the information for the Navy. I had to call him to get contact information. He was staying with John and his daughter. I used the article in Wikipedia for his biography and had a hard time coming up with a photo of him for his ID. All of the ones I found online he had a harmonica up in front of his mouth. I finally found one from 1982 where he didn’t. It was sort of blurry because he was in the background but it should work. Really amazing what you can get off the internet. I sent all that off to the various e-mail addresses and got a response back from some Lieutenant at the navy.mil address 15 minutes later that said, “So noted.”

Friday I picked up Ruby Blue. This time she was waiting out front of her apartment building. She had her show outfit on, Doc Marten boots, black shorts and her black leather vest. Her Panama hat too, of course, and she carried a nylon windbreaker as well as two more pairs of drumsticks. Her drum kit was piled around her. John Otum and Moses Berryman were ready to go when I got to John’s house. John wore one of his usual black suits with a pink shirt. He looked pretty much like me except my shirt was yellow. Moses had on khaki pants and a tan jacket, blue cotton work shirt buttoned up to his chin. He also carried a folding chair so he had something to sit on in the van.

We only got lost once on the way up to Great Lakes Naval Base. I missed a turn but Ruby figured it out using the GPS in her phone and we only went a few miles out of our way. I have that too but I don’t use it very much. On the way Old John kept remarking how things had changed since he had last been up this way. Ruby and Moses had their own conversation going in the back. I heard parts of it.

Ruby asked him, “Are you a veteran too, like John?”

“Yep,” he told her. “Omaha Beach 1944.”

“Was that Viet Nam?”

“Nope, that was WWII. We won that one.”

“How old are you?”

“98 or 99, somewhere around in there.”

“You don’t know?”

“Not for sure. It takes a while to get there, but once you do the time goes by quick.” He was quiet for a while. “I was about your age at Omaha Beach. Long time ago. It was raining.”

“Wow,” Ruby said. I wasn’t sure Ruby really understood the significance of that. There’s a divide between generations when it comes to history. Other things too, of course.

“I have to rest for a while, girl,” he told her.

Great Lakes Naval Base is a big place. I think it’s 1500 or 1600 acres, something like that. It took me a while to find the right entrance but I did. They checked us through, two stern faced guards, who didn’t find Moses Berryman’s name on their list right away. Then they did and produced a pass for him to clip onto his jacket, like the rest of us.

I parked next to a semi-trailer with the name of the Rock band that was the headliner for tonight’s show. Not far away was the custom bus emblazoned with the Country music legend’s name on it who was scheduled to be the second act. We were slated for the first spot as the opening act. Ruby was all eyes watching them unload amplifiers as big as compact cars.

Navy Entertainment really knows how to put on a show at the Great Lakes Naval Base. They’re as good and professional about it as anything you’ll find at Madison Square Garden or the Los Angeles Coliseum. I’m not just blowing smoke, I know. I’ve been there and done that, you know? We were assigned a corporal who was to be our liaison for the night. He looked at our equipment and asked, “That’s it?” It doesn’t take much to play the Delta Blues. You can do it with an acoustic guitar.

Two sturdy sailors looked on in amusement. “That’s it, John told him. “No offense to you but we’ll hump it in ourselves. Some of that stuff is older than you are.” We got our equipment on-stage, hooked up and plugged in. The two sailors did help carry the drum set. Ruby Blue supervised like a mother duck with her ducklings. It would be a while before we did our sound checks so the corporal escorted us to our dressing room. Actually we had two, Ruby had one of her own but she was only in there for about two minutes and then joined us.

“This is something else,” she told us. She was still looking around in wonder. Everything was spotless.

“Yeah, some places are better than others,” John agreed. He looked at Moses Berryman. “Remember the Racetrack Lounge in West Memphis?”

Moses laughed. “Long way from there,” he said.

Ruby looked from one to the other. I didn’t have any clue, myself, what they were talking about. “What was the Racetrack Lounge like?” she asked.

“Bass player got his throat slashed with a straight razor,” Old John told her. Moses nodded agreement. “Pretty tough crowd,” he added. “Slim something-or-other. I don’t remember his name. He was talking to the wrong girl.”

That was when Captain Ernest Swisher came in and welcomed us. Very professional, very congenial and 100% squared away. He made certain everything was to our satisfaction and told us they were ready for the sound checks.

They were still moving stuff in for the Rock band when we did our sound check. That figures when you’re the opening act. This was the first time Ruby saw the auditorium. It’s pretty impressive, all those empty seats stretching off into the distance. Generally you can’t see that when you’re on stage because of the lights. John and Ruby took a long time getting her drums mic’d right. Finally we were satisfied. So was the sound engineer. Moses didn’t have any problems with his set-up. He’d probably done this a thousand times before. It was pretty cool hearing that lonesome train whistle and the blow and suck making the railroad sound amplified so many times. It wasn’t long before he gave the engineer a thumbs-up sign. We worked with the lighting guys and women too. They had a path marked out for us with fluorescent tape on the floor. We went back to the dressing room and waited.

As the show was about to begin the corporal led us to a position in the wings backstage. The crowd was large but disciplined. I don’t know how many people Ross Auditorium will hold but I’ll guess around 6000 seats were filled that night. Ruby was a little bit nervous. She did that big-eye thing to me. I just smiled and nodded.

John stood center stage with the lights up. “I’m John Otum and we’re here to play some music for you. This is KJ Butler and that’s Ruby Blue.” Ruby and I walked out on-stage. She raised her drumsticks in a salute to the crowd. There was applause and a few whistles. “We sing the Blues,” he told the audience, more applause. Then the whole stage went dark.

A spotlight snapped onto Ruby Blue. She sat there for a moment and began playing “Zulu Mzansi War Drums.” The long roll at the beginning and then the repetitive heavy bass rhythm interspersed with cymbal clashes always gets me. Very militant.

When she finished a second spotlight came on to Old John. It was accompanied by applause from the audience, a lot of applause. “Two hundred years ago those drums called the Zulu nation to war,” he told the crowd. “Now, Ruby’s got her own version.” He turned and nodded toward Ruby Blue. The spotlight on him flicked off and she started playing. Her version is about three times faster and a lot more intense; more complicated, too. When she finished with that single cymbal clash there was silence throughout the auditorium and then it exploded with applause. She raised her drumsticks in acknowledgement and the applause grew louder, accompanied by whistles, foot stamping and calls.

The lights came back on. John told the crowd “That was “Zulu Mzansi War Drums” and “Ruby Blue War Drums.” Ruby Blue.” The cheering redoubled. John let it roll for a few seconds then he tapped the microphone. He knows how to handle a crowd. “Some of you might know this one,” he told them. “Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “Shake ‘Em on Down,” and we were off. That’s a high energy song. We start it out with Ruby Blue’s drum intro which is like no other Blues intro I’ve ever heard for 15 seconds or so and then Old John starts those slide guitar notes. They want the audience warmed up? We’re doing it.

John doesn’t say anything after that one, he just counts it down, “One two three four.” I play the opening notes to John Lee Hooker’s “Dimples” Ruby clashes the high hats and John’s guitar kicks in. Spontaneously the audience cheers. They are into this. And they’re loud.

As the applause and the cheering dwindle away after we finish that one John tells them “Now something a little bit different. Prison work song, “It’s Early in the Morning,” KJ Butler,” nodding toward me.

I start it out, “Well it’s early in the morning…” John and Ruby Blue echo me as I continue, “When I rise, when I rise.” Nice round of clapping after I finish but they don’t go crazy with it. It’s not that kind of song.

John steps to the microphone and says “Got another prison song for you and we’ve got a special guest joining us for this one.” He turns to the wings and looks at Moses. “Moses Berryman,” he says. “Please welcome him.” Moses walks out on stage accompanied by the corporal who’s carrying his chair. Polite applause, mostly the crowd is watching him get seated and so on. He looks ancient. He finally nods to John. “Midnight Special,” John tells the audience and Ross Auditorium is filled with the sound of a distant train whistle. John starts to sing, “Well, you wake up in the morning.” Very long sustain on the “well” and I sense the audience sighing. Most people know this one. Moses’ harmonica comes in again and John sings the next line, “You hear the work bell ring.” The whole first verse is like that, very slow and deliberate. Then Ruby’s drums kick in and we’re all playing and singing. The harmonica has the same effect it had during practice. The song ends and they go wild in the audience, clapping and cheering.

The corporal escorts Moses off of the stage as John tells the people, “Our final song has never been heard in public before tonight. It’s dedicated to you, the men and women of the U.S Navy. It’s called “Angry Sea” and you’ll hear why. Take it, Ruby.” The lights go out again and the stage is dark for a few seconds before the baby spotlight comes on, focused on Ruby Blue, all alone.

Then she explodes. The first 30 seconds of that song are a maelstrom of drums. It’s a whirlpool, chaos and turbulence. The intensity can be felt, not just heard, and then out of that a rhythm arises, almost hidden at first, but it increases and grows more apparent until it overcomes the tumult and disorder. It ends with multiple cymbal clashes. The crowd is stunned. They sit silent for what seems like a long time and then they rise to their feet and cheer, clapping and applauding, whistling, just making noise and showing their appreciation. The lights come back on. John lets the crowd’s response pour over us until it begins to quiet. “That was Ruby Blue, everybody,” he tells them. “I’m John Otum and this is KJ Butler. We sing the Blues.” He clicks the microphone off and we all leave the stage. The standing ovation renews itself and you can hear people shouting for an encore.

Off-stage Ruby tells John, “We’ve got to do an encore.” I know how she feels. She wants to go back out there and play forever.

“Nah,” he replies. “How do you top that? Always leave them wanting a little bit more.” 



             

BIO

C. Inanen lives in the Midwest USA. His work has recently been published in Down in the Dirt magazine and will be featured in the December 2025 issue of Yellow Mama as well. He is also a musician and co-hosted the radio series, History of the Blues, with DJ Protea, Sanet Henn, on RadioMeltdown.







Wind Chime Café

by Brittany Sirlin


Lee

The sound was distant, a soft, silvery tinkling that could only be heard inside the house while everyone still slept. When it was this quiet, the melody of the chimes hanging in the trees beyond the pool could make its way into the kitchen.

Lee froze, she closed her eyes to decipher if what she was hearing was in fact the wind chimes her mother had hung years ago or maybe just the echo of memory as she transitioned from dreaming. Her sisters were still slumbering deeply in the three corners of the upstairs hallway while her own bed lay empty in the fourth. At least it was nearing 5am, an acceptable time for the hum of the Keurig. She padded across the beige tiled floor and over to the coffee corner next to the sink where she sifted through different flavored pods.

“Why are you up?” Her dad asked accusatorily at her back, appearing as if from nowhere in the entryway.

She dropped the dark roast pod and placed a hand on her chest.

“Dad!”

“Sorry,” he whispered and walked toward her. It was rare for him to emerge from his bedroom in only boxers and a t-shirt, the primary covering the dark hairs that blanketed his arms and legs. For all of her forty years, she had mostly awakened to her dad already fully clothed in a button-down shirt, slacks, belt, and loafers, leaving a trail of aftershave and spearmint Listerine on her clothes and in her hair before disappearing off to work or to play a round of golf.

He stepped past the kitchen island and wordlessly pulled her into a hug. His embrace was warm, and she pressed her nose into his shoulder. She was happy he hadn’t dressed yet, he still smelled of his closet, of the oversized t-shirts she wore as a nightgown when she was little. He reached above her to retrieve the 12-cup drip pot from the cabinet, eyed her hand still clasping the pod and said, “Might as well with everyone home,” as explanation.

Lee nodded, “Good idea.”

Not that she would ever admit to any idea of his as being a bad one. That fell to—or rather fell haphazardly from—Lauren. Her younger sister always rolled her eyes too quickly and spoke more harshly than intended, something Lee viewed as an overall strength, unless directed at their father.

“What’s first?” Lee asked, collecting her wavy dark blonde hair into a low bun. There was still so much to pack up and divide amongst the four of them, but Lee wasn’t too concerned about the latter. There was only one thing in the house that she wanted.

“Oh, I figure you girls would start in your bedrooms and make your way downstairs. I think Mom and I made a dent in the basement.”

“I’m impressed.”

She had a flash of the basement as it was when they had first moved in. Her parents had allowed her to use the cement floor as a roller rink on her tenth birthday. There was a cool dampness to the open space and the dim lighting and slim windows near the ceiling did little to enhance the slate floor and empty walls. Nothing her mom couldn’t liven up with a disco ball and boom box. Lee’s friends spoke of that party throughout their teens. Even as adults, whenever they came to her parents’ house to visit with their own kids who would tear through the toy filled bins of the now carpeted basement, it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to say, “Remember that time…” And Lee would smile and nod, because yes of course, she remembered when her mom allowed them to skate in the basement, to contact ghosts on the Ouija board in the attic, to do flips off the diving board, have spaghetti fights when dad was working late, or hang wind chimes behind the pool amidst the pear trees and above a single wrought iron table and chair.

A nearly inaudible ting drew Lee’s gaze from her father to the windows that opened up to the backyard and beyond. To their wind chime café.

The floor of Carrie’s bedroom creaked with her waking.

“Guess we’re not the only ones getting an early start,” he said, jerking his head toward the ceiling. Lee’s older sister was conditioned to an ungodly start from her daily morning commute. It took her under an hour from her Westchester suburb to reach the parking garage two blocks from the hospital on the Upper East Side where she worked in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Her dad extracted a third mug from the cabinet, but Lee knew Carrie wouldn’t come downstairs for another hour at least. That first, her sister’s professionally trained voice would power over the running water of her shower, seep through the floors, and reach them in the kitchen—muffled, but pristine still. As if on cue, there was the high-pitched groan of the water tank shifting from cold to hot, followed by a vibrato that matched Fantine’s.

 I dreamed a dream of time gone by...

“She still sounds good.” Dad pressed his lips into a tight, turned down smile of approval. He was generous with the pride he felt for his daughters and Lee was accustomed to the expression on his face, the way his taut mouth made his chin crinkle accentuating a subtle cleft beneath dark stubble.

“The best,” Lee agreed, and meant it.

Singing in the shower had always been a part of Carrie’s morning routine, just as listening to her had been a part of Lee’s—from the ages of ten to sixteen anyhow—back when she would press her ear to the cold tile of their shared bathroom wall and absorb the Broadway tunes. That was before Carrie moved out to attend NYU’s musical theater program where she subsequently switched majors and returned home depleted of energy, and of nutrients, and of song.

Lee had already left for college by then, but she imagined there wasn’t much singing that year. Their youngest two sisters were still living at home at the time since there were only two years between each of the four girls, but they didn’t serve as reliable witnesses to that period of Carrie’s life: Lauren too high to be perceptive, Brooke far too self-conscious to notice anyone else.

Come to think of it, Lee hadn’t had access to Carrie in the intimate way of sharing a bathroom wall since those teenage years. But even fresh out of college, she used to visit Carrie at her first job as a receptionist at a private gym, where she would peer suspiciously at the overzealous trainer who would become her brother-in-law. In their late twenties, she was the one beside Carrie, holding her bloated hand after the birth of her first born. They had always remained close, but the days of being an immediate and convenient touchstone for one another were behind them, frozen within the turquoise speckled tiles of the bathroom.

At least they still had Broadway. Occasionally, the two eldest sisters would meet after Carrie’s shift at the hospital and when Lee could arrange for a babysitter to watch her three kids, assuming her husband wasn’t in Austin, or San Francisco, or potentially Cannes for one tech summit or another. On those nights, they would sit in the darkness of some theater with two double wines in plastic cups, electricity running up and down their arms as they brushed against each other. Then an actress would belt a note neither of them could reach or hold for as long, and they would squeeze each other’s hands as if to say, did you feel that? And yes, they did. They felt it the same way they did when they were little, listening to the soundtrack of The Phantom of the Opera in their father’s car, or the way they did when they were teenagers waiting backstage before Carrie stepped out in leather pedal pushers as Sandy or their mother’s wedding dress as Tzeidle. Mostly though, the moments of music shared between them would always remain here, in this house.

Even now, Lee could still feel the jump in her heart as Carrie’s voice trembled and faded above her head.

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

A pale orange glow poured in through the windows as the sun reached the tops of the trees that lined the back of the property.

“Remind me,” Lee said. “When’s the final closing?”

She opened the pantry and retrieved the S shaped cookies while she waited for the pot to fill. The dry biscuits weren’t her favorite; they always dissolved too quickly when she dunked them into coffee and left soggy bits at the bottom of her mug, but her mom loved them. Ate one nearly every morning. Or used to. Did she still? The medication always did play tricks on mom’s appetite and certain foods irritated her tongue. Lee remembered this from the first round of chemo twenty-five years ago and was reminded once more when the cancer returned five years ago, and more recently when it refused to stay in its place. But the cookies were bland enough so mom must still be eating them. Right? The not knowing saddened her as she retrieved one from the plastic sleeve.

Dad inspected the empty sink. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About the closing?”

He nodded, “But I don’t want your sisters to know just yet.”

A door creaked on its hinges above and Dad rearranged his face. The topic temporarily closed.

“We’ll find some time later.”

Footsteps moved across the carpet in small thumps toward the main, spiral staircase.

“Okay,” Lee said with an unconvincing smile. She placed the cookie on a small blue and white dish next to the nearly full pot and left the kitchen, pulled toward the sound of Carrie. Whatever Dad wanted to discuss felt heavy, too serious to take seriously in the way that only Carrie could make feel lighter. Her older sister was good at that, turning a somber situation on its head, finding humor in something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed by Lee and often resulting in cackles between the two of them in the quietest of circumstances. Yes, Carrie would know how to alleviate this day.

The center of the house was awash in rainbows. This had always been her favorite thing…the way the light hit the chandelier and filled the white walls with color. As a little girl, she would pretend to be her favorite child heroine, and turn a crystal in her palm like Pollyanna, controlling the sunbeams that flowed through it.

But Carrie was looking down at the screen in her hands as she descended along the curve of the staircase, oblivious to the miracle surrounding her.

“Hey,” she croaked, her voice raspy from singing, “take a look at this before I buy it. Can’t tell if I love it or not.”

A splash of red and orange fell diagonally across Carrie’s face, transforming the pale blonde of her hair. Lee waited for her to acknowledge the beauty that engulfed them, but Carrie either didn’t notice or didn’t care to.

Carrie

“I’ll send you the link,” Carrie offered, knowing Lee wouldn’t end up buying anything. It always baffled her how such a fashion obsessed teenager could turn into, well, their mother, and not care to invest in clothing anymore. The opposite was true for herself, she had worked far too hard to become this confident and look this good to not invest in her appearance. She wasn’t about to waste years of barre classes and therapy. Plus, she was savvy as hell when it came to finding the best sales.

Carrie sat on the bottom step and beckoned for Lee to do the same. She angled the phone in her direction to get her opinion on a dress that was just out of her usual price range and a couple hundred beyond Lee’s. It’s not like Lee had to send all three of her kids to private school, but that’s the price you pay for sticking it out in Manhattan. The best decision Carrie and her husband ever made was moving to the suburbs when their eldest was one. Sure, they still experienced financial stress. Would they ever not? But soon she and her sisters would all get their share from the sale of the house.

Carrie gazed longingly at the dress on her phone.

A gift from her parents, she rationalized. The rest, of course, would go to the kids’ sleepaway camp, Hebrew School, after school activities…she knew that her husband would have his own ideas about how to invest it, but surely one or two new things for herself wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“So?” Carrie knocked her knee against Lee’s.

“Pretty.”

A vague annoyance rushed through at her younger sister’s disinterest but was quickly dispelled when Lee leaned her head against her shoulder. Their varying shades of blonde intertwined; Lee’s honey with her ash.

“Dad wants to talk to me about the house,” Lee whispered.

Carrie sat upright, shifting her shoulder from beneath Lee’s cheek.

“About what?”

“I don’t know,” Lee waited a beat, almost expectantly, “but he doesn’t want you guys to know which is very weird, don’t you think?”

It didn’t surprise her that Lee wasn’t keeping this secret to herself. That was never one of her strengths and used to land her either in trouble or in some venomous argument with one of her friends. Carrie was happy she told her, but was also offended and couldn’t find a sarcastic way around it or a movie line to imitate for their amusement.

“Very weird,” was all she could say.

Too weird. Carrie racked her brain for an answer that would suffice. Was something wrong? And if there was, why tell Lee and not her, or Lauren, or Brooke? It didn’t make any sense. She was supposed to be the one her parents talked to about these things, important things. She had always been the first to know when something was up with mom. Mom.

“Oh shit, I left my flat iron on.” She jumped from the bottom step and jogged up the stairs, leaving Lee still sitting at the bottom. Whatever it was that their dad wanted to talk about, she didn’t want it to interfere with the one thing she mentally claimed as hers. Yes, she wanted some money from the sale, and yes, she wanted the Waterford wine glasses, and one or two pieces of Judaica, but there was only one item she felt a sentimental attachment to—which was saying a lot because there was very little that made her sentimental these days. Nostalgia, she concluded, was a menace and a waste of energy.

Carrie entered her room, went so far as to go into the ensuite to turn off the imaginary flat iron. She took a quick inventory of what remained, which wasn’t much. Her bedroom had been incrementally cleared out once she had bought a house. At least her job of packing up was minimal compared to Lee and Brooke who used their childhood bedrooms as storage; Lee because of the space limitations of an apartment, and Brooke because she had moved to Atlanta and kept most of the overflow of hand-me-downs in her bedroom closet.

The wind whistled outside the windows behind her bed and the backyard erupted in a muted melody. Carrie walked to the window and exhaled against the glass. Beautiful. Mom had made it just so beautiful. The garden flaunted its colors. An overabundance of mint leaves, the spattering of cherry tomatoes, and raspberries hidden amongst the greenery. Even at the supermarket, the scent of a ripe tomato on the vine could instantly place her in her mother’s garden, but not this one…the first one, in their old house, in the garden that she, and maybe Lee, could still recall. She doubted Lauren or Brooke remembered pulling carrots from the earth, examining zucchini with tiny, dirt encrusted nails. Carrie loved that house. She turned away from the window, scanned the bedroom she inhabited from the age of thirteen to eighteen. Memories of afternoons spent in the garden were replaced with those of having locked herself inside to study for hours, to change her clothes multiple times before leaving for school, to agonize over her appearance in the full-length mirror, to rehearse over and over for her NYU audition with her stomach in knots from whatever she had eaten to make her parents happy.

“Good riddance,” she whispered as she walked toward the door, closing it gently behind her.

Brooke

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Brooke said to no one, her eyes still closed. The repetitive smack of drawers being shut pulled her from her much needed and, if she might say so herself, much deserved sleep.

“Whoever’s doing that, can you please stop?” she yelled from beneath the lavender comforter.

When the noise persisted, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and reluctantly stood to inspect the commotion. The noise, she knew, was coming from the center room that sat between her bedroom and Carrie’s. She and her sisters had once shared it as a space to watch shows they didn’t want their parents as spectators to. Years later, it was then used as a nursery for whichever of their babies was the youngest and needed a crib, and now mostly as storage for whatever dad had already boxed upstairs.

Brooke opened the double white wooden doors to reveal Carrie inspecting cabinets that had already been emptied.

“What are you doing?” Her annoyance was apparent, but she wanted it to be.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” Carrie asked without turning.

“It’s fine.” She meant it. The hardened tone of before melted away at her sister’s voice. Better to get an early start anyhow and lessen mom and dad’s stress. “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” Carrie said too quickly. “Well, not nothing. Maybe stuff I might want to keep, ya know?”

That didn’t surprise her, but Brooke assumed Carrie had already flagged what would go to her. A rush of adrenaline shot through her chest at the realization that the four of them hadn’t really discussed this yet. Her eyes darted to the wall above the grey couch where the picture she had wanted had been on display for the last thirty years. In its place was the faded outline of where it once hung.

Brooke didn’t react, careful not to show her hand too quickly.

“Find anything?” She asked instead.

“Nothing.” Carrie stood, dusted both hands on her thighs and shrugged. “I guess mom and dad are really doing this.”

“Looks like it.”

Brooke pressed her lips together and suppressed the urge to cry. Tears would make Carrie retreat. Instead, she bit the insides of her cheeks and tried to keep her thoughts from spilling out of her mouth. What good would it do? Any time she tried to express an opinion or an emotion, it clashed with her eldest sister’s and ended in an argument. Still, it wasn’t in Brooke’s nature to suppress. Her entire career all boiled down to the importance of healthy communication…even if that meant with oneself. She had lost count of the number of patients she coached through positive self-talk and empathetic conversations with their partners after the loss of a baby or during the grueling months post-partum. But her profession was why she held her tongue in this moment (Carrie would prickle at the insinuation that she was being therapized), it was also the reason Brooke had set her sights on the framed sketch that had apparently been packed away already, or worse, claimed by one of her sisters.

“Okay,” Brooke sighed as closure. A door opened, closed softly down the hall. Lauren. Surely Lauren would know if mom and dad had a plan in mind for who got what. Lauren saw their parents several times a week, nearly every day for the past nine years since she and her husband moved into a house one town away. Brooke turned to exit, an anxious swirl of want and regret seeping into every finger, every toe, through her right ear and then her left. This is how emotion worked for her; it flooded her very being.

The missing sketch flashed behind her closed eyes: the woman’s profile, the fine pencil lines of the tendril hanging from her chignon, the fullness of the baby’s cheek beneath the woman’s breast. Brooke could envision the faded gold frame maybe hanging in her home office, a reminder of why she does what she does. Though, it would make sense for Carrie to want it for that very personal, professional reason as well. Maybe she too had mentally positioned it by her computer at the hospital. Brooke could understand that, wanting to look at something familiar from their home, and at the same time a calming vision after hours spent mixing formula for babies in the NICU.

Brooke glanced once more at Carrie as she checked her phone. There were six years between them. Not so many that childhood memories didn’t overlap, but not so few that they shared the same kinship as Lee and Lauren did, or maybe her middle sisters’ relationship was forged by simply being in the middle as opposed to the twenty-one months they had between them. But they were all adults now, and not only that, she and Carrie both operated daily in the business of trauma. The only difference was, while Brooke embodied it, Carrie sidestepped. But surely, surely the sale of the house was hurting her. It wouldn’t be healthy for Carrie to keep it to herself and here they were, just the two of them, in the early hours of the morning.

“Oh, wait,” Carrie called as Brooke opened the door.

Her inner dialogue shifted to her sister. Tell me. Ask me.

“What’s the plan for breakfast?”

Brooke swallowed. “Uh.”

She listened to Lauren cross the hall to Lee’s bedroom, “Bagels,” and allowed herself one final glance at the blank space on the wall, “I think.”

Lauren

It happened without thinking, her waking and walking to Lee’s room just as she always had. Maybe muscle memory? Could that be a thing or is that not how that works? Lauren couldn’t be bothered to look it up. All she knew was that it had been 20 years since they had lived together, 17 if they counted the time they were roommates in Australia, and Lee’s bedroom was still her first port of call. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were wearing the same gray, drawstring, college sweats and faded Dave Matthew’s Band t-shirt. Their slim pickings from what remained in their closets mirrored each other’s, but they had always unknowingly dressed alike. It used to be a point of contention. Waking up only to realize that one of them had to change their outfit before school after a round of rock, paper, scissors. But it quickly became humorous with matching maternity clothes and then even intentional with Lauren more recently becoming Lee’s personal shopper.

Lauren didn’t have to call out. She could tell Lee wasn’t in her room. She would have either still been in bed, buried beneath a pale green quilt, or already at work in front of the bathroom mirror tweezing her eyebrows and readying her face for the day. Out of the four upstairs bedrooms, Lee’s had remained the most lived in and full. There were diaries and photos, love notes and mementos that only Lauren had access to. Well, access to upon her sister’s death as she had once been instructed. Otherwise, she cared little for snooping. Lee had always done enough of that for the both of them anyhow. Now though, the room felt scarce. Photo frames of Lee and her husband in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge had been folded and removed from atop the white oak dresser, thick scrapbooks no longer sat heavy with high school and college memories in the oversized ottoman.

This all seemed wrong. Lauren sat at the edge of the bed, pushed her bare feet into the beige carpet and pressed her elbows into the tops of her thighs. Her thick chestnut hair fell forward from her shoulders. She stared straight ahead at the 16×24 Bat Mitzvah portrait that hung on the wall. What on earth would Lee do with that and besides, where was her sister now? Right now?

Lauren felt alone and that was her most hated sensation. It was why when even at her wits end when her two boys would scream for her in the middle of the night, claw at her body, insist on her presence, she relented and stayed nearby. Lauren recalled the feeling all too well. The memory of being her sons’ ages of 5 and 7 were faded, but the emotion coursed through her veins as if no time had passed since she and her sisters lived in the first house, where she shared a bunk bed with Brooke, and her parents were just down the hall as opposed to all the way downstairs. In that first house, Lauren, like her own boys, demanded her mother’s comfort at night. Not her physical touch, no, that was a different thing. A squirmy, suffocating thing that she never much cared for. All Lauren needed to know was that mom was nearby. Still there? she would call out to the hallway. Still here, her mom would respond from somewhere in the darkness.

And if their mom couldn’t hold up her end of the bargain, Lauren could always climb into bed with Lee. So what if meant nightmares from one of Lee’s stories? At least she wouldn’t be alone. It was why Lauren always knew she would have more than one baby, it was why she sometimes longed for one more still. It was also why she wanted to collect the picture from the middle room as soon as possible. Not that there was any rush, she just wanted it in her possession. That image of mother and child that her own mom had sketched with her skillful hands meant more to her than anyone could even guess. She would never admit that though, not to mom at least who had grown increasingly cynical into her seventies. Painting, shmainting, her mom would say. Was it a painting? No, a sketch. Whatever it was, to Lauren, it was proof of a life fulfilled; it was a reminder that it was okay—more than okay—to just be a mom. Meanwhile, their mom wasn’t just any one thing, though she was always quick to put herself down in such a way. Mom was—is the thing. She’s the garden and the crystals, the wind chimes and the stories, the food and the artwork, the pressed flower petals and origami dollar bills. Mom never had to be, she just had to be there.

And now, what? They were up and moving? It made sense. Of course it did. Her parents shouldn’t remain in a house too big for the two of them, up a driveway too steep for their aging muscles. And it wasn’t like they would be far. If anything, they were moving even closer to where she and her family lived now. Proximity was important. Not that Lee would understand that. Lauren seethed at the thought of her brother in law’s talk of one day moving closer to his family in Australia. Didn’t he get it? They needed each other. They all did, and they were losing the one place that encapsulated that necessity.

Where the hell was everyone? She twirled the ends of her hair and then stood abruptly from the bed. It was too damn quiet in this room!

“Mom!” Lauren called out the open door.

And from down the spiral staircase, a faint but familiar, “I’m here.”

Hannah

“Here!” Hannah tried again knowing her daughters had probably moved on from whatever it was they wanted. But still, she waited, hoped someone would come to her door. They were letting her rest, she knew. They were always letting her rest. Far too careful ever since her diagnosis, or re-diagnosis rather. She listened another beat, just in case one of her girls needed her for one thing or another, but all she heard was the soft music of the wind hitting the chimes in the backyard. She moved from her door to the full-length windows next to her bed and threw open the heavy ivory curtains. There was a flurry of common grackles and catbirds around the feeder that she observed with satisfaction. Would the new owners keep it up? What would happen to her birds? To the cardinals and the bluejays, or even to the stray cats and racoons that she sometimes left little treats for? She chuckled, amused at the thought of the fright the new owners might get from spotting a pair of small, shining eyes in the night. Hannah doubted they were animal people. Too few were these days.

“Morning.”

Hannah turned expecting to see Lauren. It was Laur who called to her before, wasn’t it? It could be hard to tell.

“My Brooke girl,” Hannah cooed. Her baby. Her surprise. Her pain in the ass, beautiful, little gift. She smiled and attempted to tame the cowlick of her pixie cut.

“Did you sleep okay?” Brooke asked and immediately Hannah felt her chest puff. This dynamic of her youngest always inquiring, checking on her mental and physical health…it was not to her liking.

“Fine.” Her tone brisk, but hopefully not hurtful. She knew how sensitive Brooke was to tone. She knew because she, too had always been far too sensitive and prone to fits of tears or rage. Though Hannah prayed every Friday night in front of the Shabbos candles that none of her girls would come to this realization in the same that she had, what they didn’t understand was that not everything had to be so goddamn emotional. Once you lose your hair, your breasts, your privacy… hell, even your appetite on most days…things just don’t hold the weight they once did. Hannah wanted to be sensitive to her daughters’ feelings about selling the house, but it was just a house. She feared her youngest especially wouldn’t see it that way. They always did put too much stock in things, her girls. For that, she blames their friends. And her husband, just a little. Hannah still thought the girls would have been better off in a Jewish private school than where they had attended with its hallways filled with designer backpacks and parking lot glistening with expensive cars.

“Mom?” Brooke stepped further into the bedroom and sat on an upholstered armchair beside the bed. “You know the picture from the middle room? The one you made of the mother breastfeeding her baby?”

“I do.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Had she packed it away? She couldn’t recall. Maybe she had.

“It’s packed.”

“Oh, ok well—”

“Or I don’t know actually. Ask dad.”

“You don’t know?” Brooke inquired with a tilt of her head.

Hannah sighed audibly. She detected the judgment in her daughter’s tone. How many times had she had to turn to Brooke with a stern, now listen to me, little girl?

“No. I don’t. It’s a big house filled with a lot of crap that you and your sisters have taken your sweet time on clearing out so I’m sorry if I can’t locate a single frame for you.”

Why did she do this? It reminded her of the days leading up to when the girls would leave for sleepaway camp or for college. She would push them away even before they left. Not this time. She lurched forward in an attempt to repair.

“Sorry, baby.”

Brooke looked like she had been slapped. Hannah pressed the back of her hand to Brooke’s cheek, soothed the verbal assault. What was so important about that sketch anyways? It wasn’t even one of her better ones. The lines too haphazard, the shading never quite right. She hadn’t planned to put it on display in the new house and maybe she even had packed it away without realizing. She couldn’t be sure, especially after days of carefully wrapping and boxing all of the Swarovski crystal ornaments: ducks, turtles, cats…all of her tiny, magnificent creatures.

“It’s okay,” Brooke forgave her because of course she did, because she was now the most intuitive out of the whole lot of them.

“Hannah!” Her husband barked from down the hall. “Bagels!”

Michael

“Come on,” Michael muffled under his breath at the sight of the bare table. You would think after thirty years of living in this house, after some 1,500 Sunday morning bagels, his wife and daughters would know the routine. They all had their roles; his to get the food, theirs to set the table.

He placed the brown paper bag on the green granite island at the center of the kitchen and inhaled the warm steam that escaped the bag, garlic and sesame, toasted caraway and other aromatics. The stillness of the early morning was replaced with footsteps, a running faucet, the clatter of someone packing upstairs.

“Girls! Guys? Come on down,” he called out. The bagels were fresh, still warm. To toast them would be a crime, but to let them go cold, even more so. He felt anxious with each passing second and moved swiftly to pour orange juice from the carton into a pitcher, to remove the lids from cream cheese, and delicately fork the thin oily strips of lox onto a platter. He set aside plates and cutlery specifically for this final Sunday morning breakfast and was prepared to hand wash and pack it all away once the six of them had finished. Hannah would find it insufferable, he knew, and was sure to make some comment about paper plates, but this was better. This was right. This was how his mom would have done it. His mind wandered to both his parents much more frequently these days, not that they weren’t always present in some hidden corner, but ever since retirement? Well, the memory of his parents, their health, their daily routine, it both soothed and terrified him. They aged well, his mom especially, but with each transition: the sale of his childhood home, his father’s retirement, they slowly slipped from the role of caretaker to dependent. Michael wasn’t ready for that. Would never be ready for that. But what worried him most was that his daughters wouldn’t be either.

He set down the same blue and white plates they had always used for breakfast, along with the matching mugs. The coffee pot was now full and filled the kitchen with its vibrant promise of a productive day. Lauren and Lee appeared from wherever they had been conspiring. He could see by Lee’s eager grin that she had already confided in Lauren what he mentioned to her early that morning. It didn’t bother him much, he assumed whatever was shared with Lee was passed along to Lauren, and vice versa.

“Where’s mom’s sketch from the middle room?” Lauren blurted.

“Her…oh you mean the one she did in college?” He stalled.

“I always thought it was a self-portrait with one of us,” Lee said.

“No,” Carrie answered confidently from the stairwell, assuming her role as the one who knows mom best. She walked past them and grabbed a mug from the table.

“Well then when did she make it?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s not a self-portrait.” Carrie lifted the coffee pot and began to pour.

“Mom!” Lauren yelled.

Hannah covered her ears as she approached the center island with Brooke. “I’m right here, what do you want?”

“The sketch of mother and child, is it a self-portrait?”

“Why all the sudden interest? How about, mom when did you do that realist, charcoal of Cousin Bruce? Or any of the still life flower pieces? None of it is very good, but I think we should hang on to the cow skull, don’t you, Rich?”

“Already bubble wrapped and ready to go.”

“Can I have the one from upstairs then?” Lauren asked.

“It’s not there,” Brooke answered firmly.

Michael felt something pass between the four girls. An eyeing of one another. It felt unusual. As sisters, they had never been competitive, never argued over who was better at what—they each had plenty of their own interests—or even over boyfriends—they each had plenty of those, too. Now, however, there was something of a silent standstill in the kitchen.

“Actually,” Carrie started, and he noticed the other three straighten, “I wanted it for my office. Is that okay? It’s not a big deal, but it just makes sense.”

“Makes sense how?” Lauren wasn’t ready to give in the way Carrie assumed she would. “Aren’t you literally in the business of formula and bottle feeding?”

“There’s actually a lot of breast milk involved and besides, I’m in the business of motherhood.”

“So am I,” Brooke was red, holding back plenty of what she wanted to say.

“That’s so unfair,” Lee placed a hand at Lauren’s back, something only Michael could see from where he stood, “we all are,” she added gently. “Besides, mom said I could have it when they moved, right mom?”

Michael peered at his wife, then at Lee. It was too hard to tell if this was the truth, Lee had a penchant for fibbing and was prone to twist information to her benefit. Guilt pressed heavily on his chest and his stomach turned at the scent of red onions. This was not how this was supposed to go. If they were already fighting over a picture, what would happen when he spoke to Lee about the house?

“Let’s settle this after breakfast. Plenty of time to figure out who gets what. It’s not going anywhere.”

We’re not going anywhere. Plenty of time. But isn’t that why he felt an ounce of relief when the sale didn’t go through? Isn’t that why he wanted Lee to consider moving her family from the city? So that they could keep the house, so that they could all have more time. That’s not the solution, he realized that now. It was just a thought, and not a bad one at that. He often wondered when his second born would wake up and desire comfort and stability as opposed to living in limbo, always wondering if she would continue to spend a fortune in Manhattan or move across the world and visit once a year. No. That wouldn’t do. He had her answer right here, but—he glanced at Lee across the table as they all sat with the bagel of their choice in front of them—she would want the house just as much as she would not.

A cruel luxury indeed.

Better to not even give it as an option. There would be more buyers. There would be more time.

“Does anyone want anything from the garage fridge?”

The second fridge which he once stocked religiously with diet coke and cream soda for his daughters, Gatorade and juice boxes for his ten grandkids, Corona and Peroni for his sons in law, was now scant with a single carton of creamer and a pack of ginger ale for himself.

“Dad, we have everything we need,” Brooke said, her green eyes illuminating under the hanging light fixture. She placed a hand on his arm. “Sit.”

“How about some of that creamer you like, Brookey? I’ll be right back.” His departure brought with it five sets of imploring eyes, but he didn’t dare turn. They had a long day ahead and he needed to keep his composure. His strength allowed them to be vulnerable. A tight embrace and reassuring farewell before any one of his girls left home always resulted in pent up tears released into the fabric of one of his shirts. If he came undone now, what would that mean for them?

He flicked the switch of the garage light and the muted yellow revealed cardboard boxes lined up next to his and Hannah’s cars. He knew exactly which of the fifty or so brown packages he wanted and tore at the duct tape upon retrieving it from the pile. The woman in the frame didn’t look back at him, she never did, her eyes were fixed downward at the infant she was nursing, whose gaze was lifted to its mother’s. Michael gently brushed his thumb along the length of the woman’s slender neck, over the curve of her breast, to the full cheek of the baby. Where did it all go? His young wife with her long auburn hair, his little girls all innocent and wide-eyed shades of blue, and brown, and green? They all sat waiting for him in the kitchen, but my god when did they get here, to this point? When did he get here? He could still play 18-holes on a scorching summer morning, could still run a 10-minute mile, could still lift the heavy boxes and even heavier grandkids. So why did it feel like he was relinquishing some degree of agency by leaving this house?

The trees swayed with vigor, shaking leaves from their branches as they succumbed to the weight of the wind and flew past the narrow windows of the garage. He closed the box and shut his eyes, listened to the rattle of the heavy door on its hinges, the muffled laughter from the kitchen, the music from the backyard. This was not the finale; it was the overture to a new chapter. He filled his lungs and stood at the thought. The overture, yes. He would tell his daughters just that when he went inside. Still, he understood they were grieving. More so, he knew why they all wanted the very same item. It was the same reason he was going to pluck a wind chime off the pear trees even though he had never sat down in what his wife and girls referred to as the wind chime café. It was why toddlers, and the elderly, and the plants in the garden all bent toward his wife trying to capture some warmth, some light. They all wanted a piece of her. So did he, and Carrie, and Lee, and Lauren, and Brooke.

It wasn’t the house, or the sketch they were afraid of not having in their possession. He would confess to keeping the picture they all staked their claim to, of course he would. But maybe not just yet.

There would be time to figure out what goes to whom, time for all of that, but not now, not yet.



BIO

Brittany Sirlin is an educator, writer, and mother of three living in New York, New York. She has a Bachelor of Science in secondary education for English Language Arts from Penn State University and a Masters in Literacy from Hofstra University. Brittany is an English Language Arts teacher and freelance writer who is currently working on a women’s fiction novel and other shorter works of fiction. Her first published work, Playing Dead was released in March 2023 in an anthology titled Our Magical Pandemic. Brittany has also been published in Kveller and in Mutha Magazine








She’ll Talk When She Has something to Say

by Dennis Vannatta

1

            The Barlows were a strange family, oddly mismatched, strangers to each other, strangers, some of them, to themselves.

            Well, maybe Fran Barlow, the matriarch of the family, wasn’t so strange.  She was just tired, physically and every other way a woman of forty who looked ten years older could be tired.  She was assistant manager of a Rustlers Burgers franchise, working the swing shift, which was the best part of her day.  There, amidst the irate customers and sulky employees, the wonky soda machine and the women’s toilet daily clogged with flush-proof Tampons, she could put her mind in neutral, or if not neutral some gear that allowed purposeful activity without reference to what awaited her at home:  that is, Barlows.

            She loved them, of course.  A matriarch has to love her family, even if she did once in a low moment say to a coworker, “There’s nothing wrong with my family that a well-placed funeral or two wouldn’t cure.”  Joking, of course, and no sooner said than regretted, because what calamity might she have brought down on her loved ones?  Twofunerals?  Neither of her children could be included, so that would mean one would have to be her husband, Perry, an all-too-real prospect for a funeral (prostate cancer.  surgery?  chemo?  radiation?  decision yet to be made).  Please God, no funeral for Perry, exasperating as he could be.  Her sister, though . . .

            Sally Pine wasn’t a Barlow, of course.  To this day, Fran resisted thinking of her as part of the family even though their son, Douglas, twelve years old, could hardly remember the family before his aunt came to live with them; and for Halo, almost five, Sally had always been living in the room Perry fashioned for her out of what had once been the attic, where she’d sometimes go days at a time without emerging, “like someone out of a Brontë novel,” Douglas said.  Precocious Douglas was the reader in the family.  Perry didn’t see much point to reading unless it was some sort of instruction manual, and there weren’t enough hours in Fran’s day for it.  As for Halo, she was too young, at least they supposed, but how was one to know?  Halo certainly never said.  Fran had once or twice caught Sally reading some New Age crap.  Goddamn refugee-from-the-Sixties airhead.

            Actually, Sally was too young by several decades to be a refugee from the Sixties although she desperately wanted to be.  She’d spent much of her adult life searching for an appropriately Sixtyish commune and found several that seemed to do the trick, living for a few months to a few years in this one or that one until the patriarchal inevitability at the heart of each began to weigh on her.  Then she’d be off searching once more.

            No, Sally wasn’t gay.  “Sure, I gave lesbianism a try, but I’m just not wired that way.  And, no, I don’t hate men.  Men in their uncorrupted state are just fine.  But I’m not going to be chained to anybody.”

            “Hey, those chains get a bad rap,” Perry said, putting his arm around Fran and giving her a hug before she elbowed him away.  “Maybe you should give marriage a try.”

            “I did.  I married that commune in the White Mountains.”

            Yes, she claimed to have married the whole commune, which neither Fran nor Perry for an instant doubted.

            Fran, who’d sat there like an idol with a migraine as Sally gave them an overview of her life, or what she could remember of her life in the decade since they’d last seen her, finally squeezed out between clenched teeth, “You could try settling down, couldn’t you?  Couldn’t you for once in your life just try settling down?”

            “Bingo!  That’s why I’m here,” Sally said.

            Seven years later, she still was.

            It was the only thing she’d ever stuck to in her life, Fran said, “the silly bitch.”

            The hell of it was, Sally seemed happy up in the attic.  If only she were miserable, felt that itch to fly free which from her earliest days had been her defining characteristic, Fran might have gotten her off her hands.  But no.  “I’ve had enough of out there,” Sally said, fluttering her hands vaguely as if she were shewing off what she’d been chasing for decades: parts unknown,  the lure of the untried, men, drugs.

            Sally claimed to have given up alcohol for pot when she was fourteen, which Fran disputed.  Sally had been smoking pot way earlier than fourteen.  And pot for her hadn’t been so much a gateway drug as an open-border policy.  She tried a little bit of everything and a lot of some things, but it wasn’t until her last commune, the one somewhere north of California and south of Oregon, she said, that she got hooked on beautiful heroin, and that scared her.  She came home, to Fran’s home, that is, the closest thing she had to a home, their folks being dead.  “I’ve had enough of out there.”

            Would they ever be rid of her? 

            She was family but not quite family—an “adjunct member,” Douglas called her.

            “That sounds about right,” Perry said.  “She’s a piece of junk you add on,” to which Fran laughed as she hadn’t laughed in years although she wasn’t sure if Perry was trying to be funny or just didn’t know what adjunct meant.  He was awful ignorant.

            Like when Sally was in one of her stay-in-her-room spells and Fran would take a tray of food up and leave it outside her door, Perry accused Fran of being a “user.”

            “I think you mean enabler, Pop,” Douglas said but then realized he might make his father feel bad by pointing out his error and grew flustered and blushed and waved his hands like he was trying to erase his words and stammered, “but that’s OK, that’s all right, that’s just fine.  I mean, I guess there’s not much difference between an enabler and a user, depending on how you look at it, if you see what I mean,” and only stopped babbling on when Fran, who’d almost laughed at the beginning, ended by taking her son in her arms and stroking his sandy-blond buzz cut.

            Douglas had thick, naturally wavy hair and could have been a real doll except he didn’t have enough time for tending hair.  He had too much to do taking care of the family.

            Douglas was the adviser to the uncertain, the comforter to the afflicted, the mediator when family conflicts flared.  Often—though certainly not always—his efforts found some success.  But at what price to Douglas?  He was so invested in his struggles to ease the way for others that there was little left for himself.  Beyond the self-sacrificing Douglas, was there even a Douglas there?

            Fran worried about him, maybe more than she did any member of the family.  Perry, of course, had cancer, but that wassomething at a distance as far as she was concerned, something that transpired between his urologist’s office and the hospital where he’d go for treatment of some kind, once that was decided.  She’d get down to serious worrying about Perry when the time came, but that time had not yet arrived.  Sally?  Ha!  She’d worry that Sally was going to eat them out of house and home, worry that she’d never move out of their home, but worry worry?  Aggravating, that was Sally.

            Halo, though.  Fran should worry about her, but instead of worrying, she wondered.  Everybody else—family, friends, teachers, doctors—wondered about her, too.  Like, why did Halo always appear to be so happy?  It seemed almost perverse, somehow.

            Halo.  Blame Fran for the name.  She’d chosen Douglas for her first-born, named after his grandfather, thinking that grounding him in a tradition would give him strength, resiliency.  But the ink was no sooner dry on his birth certificate than she became aware of the names of other boys his age and saw that the time of the Douglases and Davids and Ronalds was past, and in this new world of Thads and Chads and Lukes she’d hung that clunky old name on him like an anchor on a boy learning to swim.

            She wouldn’t make the same mistake with her daughter.  She’d pick a name to ride the crest of the coming wave, not one of the trendy Helens or Jordans or Madisons because the trendy is soon passé.  Something newer than trendy.  Why not Halo?

            Jesus wept.  Halo was neither trendy nor trend-setting.  It was merely, disastrously, other.  Halo was apart, like no other family member, no other child.

            Halo did not speak.  Almost five years old, she’d never uttered a word.  When she was three, a specialist examined and tested her and pronounced her hearing just fine and her intelligence just fine, and she had no physical impairment.  “Don’t worry about it,” he concluded.  “She’ll talk when she has something to say.”  For a year they’d repeat “She’ll talk when she has something to say” like a mantra, with a shrug and a little smile as if it were really almost amusing.  By now, though, Halo almost five, the doctor can’t hide his concern, and only Douglas, desperate for it to be true, still repeats the mantra, with a smile that looks more like a grimace.

            It was the name that caused it—that ludicrous Halo—and Fran had only herself to blame.  So what if Halo seemed happy, the happiest of them all?  Fran still worried about her, piling that worry on top of all the other worries.

            Will the day ever come when Fran can say the hell with all of them and worry about herself?

She doesn’t drink or do drugs.  Often she wishes she did.

2

            Perry didn’t tell Fran he’d made an appointment to see his urologist to announce his decision—surgery, chemo, or radiation—until the Wednesday morning he was walking out the door.

            “Well, I’m going to see Dr. Kuhn.”

            Then he let the screen door slap shut behind him, strode straight across the yard to his pickup, and climbed in without once looking back.

            Probably they should have talked through an issue like that together, husband and wife.  But Perry wasn’t much of a talker.  Fran wasn’t, either.  She generally just wanted to put her feet up when she was finished with work and all her chores at home and was content to let him worry about that decision.  Besides, she’d lay money he was going to put it all off on Dr. Kuhn.  Perry was boss in his small-engine repair shop and would put his two cents in about what to watch on TV, but other than that he wasn’t big on making decisions.

            She met him at the door when he got home two hours later, and he simply said with a shrug, “Radiation.”

            That was what she’d expected.  Not the radiation—she had no idea which treatment it’d be—but the shrug.  Perry never made a big deal out of anything.

            Still, he’d seemed different somehow.  If she had to put a word to it, she’d say he seemed sort of “dreamy.”  As if that made any sense.

            But she didn’t have time to think any more about it because it was her day off from Rustlers Burgers, which meant she had a thousand chores to catch up on at home, and anyway Perry almost immediately went out to his shop, the converted garage to the side of the house.

            She’d forgotten the dreamy look by dinner time when they all gathered around the big tureen of fried wieners and sour kraut.  Fran asked Halo about her day at pre-school, and Halo smiled happily because she had a lot of friends there who, Mrs. Simmermaker said, were delighted to do her talking for her.  Then, because silences at the dinner table made him nervous, without being asked Douglas started in on a long discourse about his day.  When he wound down, Fran added her bit—the call on her day off about the dad-blasted ice-cream machine being on the fritz again.  Finally, Sally, Queen of the Airheads, who’d deigned to join them for dinner, began blah-blah-blahing about something she’d seen on a Dr. Phil rerun, but Fran wasn’t listening because she’d finally glanced over at Perry.  And there was that look.

            Even Sally noticed something.  She reached across the plate of homemade sweet pickles and laid her many-ringed hand on Perry’s.

            “So, Perry, what did you decide?”

            Shrug:  “Radiation.”

            “Oh, good,” Sally said.  “I’m so glad you chose radiation.  There’s something almost spiritual about it.  Not like chemotherapy.  You don’t want to put chemicals into your body.  Trust one who knows.  And surgery?  Ugh.  Don’t go under that knife.”

            Even before his aunt had finished, Douglas had begun squirming in his chair, and as soon as Sally’s “knife” was out, he launched into an enthusiastic if rambling encomium on the virtues of radiation.

            Halo smiled sweetly as she listened to her brother, whom she adored. 

            Sally, staring intently at Perry, interrupted Douglas.

            “You look different somehow, Perry.  Something’s happened.”

            Perry hated to be the center of attention, and normally he would have ignored Sally and continued his attack on his food.  Instead, he lowered his fork and averted his eyes, not shyly so much as modestly.

            “Something did happen,” Sally said breathlessly.  “I knew it.  Tell us.”

            Perry sat his fork down and folded his hands.  Cleared his throat.

            “Well, it wasn’t much, really.  Just a funny little thing.  Not funny ha ha, but, you know.”

            He paused, but nobody said anything, so he cleared his throat again and continued.

            “It was just this old guy.  I’d just left the clinic and I was walking across the parking lot to my pickup, and there was this old guy, sixty maybe, I don’t know, and he was standing at the edge of the parking lot.  Just a regular looking guy, dressed in regular clothes.  Well, I’m about to get into my pickup, and he says something to me.  ‘Say what?’ I said because I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right, wasn’t even sure he was talking to me.  But he said it again.  ‘You’re all right.  Don’t worry.  You’re going to be OK.’”

            They waited for him to continue.  But he didn’t.  He just peered down at his plate with that look.  Dreamy.  Modest.

            Once again it was Sally who reacted first.  She clasped both hands over her mouth as if trying to stifle herself, then squealed back deep in her throat and said, “It was an angel!  He was an angel!”

            Fran barked out a laugh, and Douglas laughed briefly, too, but then sat with a look of tormented indecision.  Was it a joke?  Should he laugh?  What should he say?

            They all looked at Perry.  He shook his head very slowly, then gazed upward and said, “I kind of thought he was God.”

*

            None of them knew what to say, how to act around Perry.

            Well, Sally thought she did.  Over the rest of that day and the next she couldn’t stay away from him, treated him like he was some precious, fragile thing, taking cups of her favorite herbal tea out to him in his shop, speaking to him in low, reverential tones, even running her hand gently over his balding head until Fran shouted at her, “Oh, get over yourself!  You’re just trying to turn this into more of your New Age crap!”  And Sally, with a look of a martyr persecuted for yet sustained by her faith, ascended to her attic room.

            Douglas spoke not a word the rest of that day, nor the next morning before school, nor after he came home that afternoon, communicating only in nods and gestures.  Was he turning into another Halo?  “Don’t make any more out of this than it is,” Fran told him.  “It’s just a thing, that’s all.  It’ll pass.”  Douglas nodded.

            Halo—well, who knew?  Was it Fran’s imagination, or did she, the happiest of them all, seem more subdued, thoughtful—if a not-quite-five-year-old can be said to be thoughtful?

            Fran, least of all, knew what to think, how to react.  Perry wasn’t a man to lie, so she believed his story about seeing the man and what the man said.  But that other stuff.  An angel?  God?  Please.  Perry was a practical, everyday, down to earth, nuts and bolts kind of guy.  For him to imagine that, well, it had to be a sign of how desperate, how frightened he was.  Perry, her solid man, afraid of death.

*

            That next afternoon, Fran picked the kids up at school and once home made a pan of cornbread and put a pot of white beans on to cook.  She’d be at work by the time it was ready to eat, but Douglas could be relied upon to get the dinner on the table.

            When it came time for her to leave for Rustlers, though, she did something she’d done only a couple of times in all the years she’d worked there:  she called in sick.  She felt like she needed to stick close to home, close to Perry.

            At 5:00 Fran sent Halo out to the shop to bring her dad in for dinner.  When they got back in, she told Halo to go up and bang on Sally’s door, just in case Her Majesty decided to grace them with her presence.

            While they waited, Fran and Douglas began breaking up slices of cornbread on their plates and ladling on steaming beans.  Perry, though, just sat there with his hands flat on either side of his plate, that look on his face.  Fran thought of that famous painting, the one of Jesus and the apostles at the last supper.  Do you think you’re Jesus, now? she felt like saying.  But she didn’t.  She wanted to be exasperated, but she wasn’t.  She didn’t know what she was.

            Halo came to the table, and Sally swept in behind her.  Douglas fixed Halo’s plate for her.  Sally helped herself.  Perry sat there.

            Then Perry took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  The others stopped eating, sat as frozen as those figures in that painting.

            “Out in the shop, Halo spoke to me,” he said.  “She told me it was all true, that I was going to be all right.”

            Sally made a sound that might have been a sob and then asked, “The man.  Was he an angel—or God?  Did she tell you that?”

            Halo put a spoonful of beans in her mouth.  She ate her beans and cornbread separately, not all mashed together like the rest of the family.

            Perry didn’t answer but began to eat while the others turned to Halo and waited for her to speak again, Douglas with a look on his face like it was all he could do to keep from shouting, Talk!  Talk!  So I won’t have to!  At the same time, Sally’s eyes began to brim just as her heart no doubt was overflowing with this affirmation of her New Age faith, whether Halo ever spoke again or not.  Fran, though . . .

            Fran believed that Perry had never lied before, not even when he said he thought it might be God speaking to him on that parking lot, but he might be lying now.  Why would he lie, though, and why this particular lie?  Unless it was to ease her of her worrying, at least a little, at least until the worrying couldn’t be helped.  A lie for love, then.

            She didn’t know what to say to him, so she said nothing until that night when she found him sitting on the edge of their bed, one sock dangling from his hand, lost in thought.

            She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

            “Sally and Douglas are waiting to hear Halo talk again, but you know,” she said.  “I was thinking, I don’t know, I was thinking that she may never talk again, that she was sent here to speak to you just that one time.  In case you were still worrying.”

            He reached up and patted her hand as if he understood.

            If he did, it was more than Fran could claim.  In fact, later, lying in the dark and telling herself that this was the first time she’d ever lied to her husband, she wasn’t even sure that she had.



BIO

Dennis Vannatta is a Pushcart and Porter Prize winner, with essays and stories published in many magazines and anthologies, including River Styx, Chariton ReviewBoulevard, and Antioch Review.  His sixth collection of stories, The Only World You Get¸ was published by Et Alia Press.







The Garden

by Bay Sandefur



The beaded sweat of his mother’s forehead transferred onto Aiden’s thumb as he touched her—doing so as he had never done when she wasn’t sick. Now, she was asleep and her chest rose and fell in heavy and rapid motions. He felt a motion of sickness rise in his stomach as he looked at her this way.

Her hand reached out to grab his wrist. It was cold, clammy, and weak, yet he could tell she was giving all of her strength. He pulled his hand away from her face and began to stand.

“You’re here for the rest of the day?” she spoke with a rasp.

“No,” he said with his back towards her, grabbing his cloak from the hook on the wall in front of the door.

“Aiden, are you alright?”

The sound of scratching wind entered the room as he opened the door to leave and immediately shut it behind himself.

He brushed his hand against the dusty surface of the bar top, hoping that he might feel the sting of a shard of wood piercing a fingertip. It had been a week since he learned about his mother’s illness. Now, while watching his fingers mimic the divots of the wood beneath them, he could picture the purple tips of her fingers against the bed sheet, the matted grease-nest of her hair against the pillow, and her eyes like two wilting roses.

“You’re taking a second shift again?” Vic voiced from behind the bar, standing next to Aiden and breaking him out of his trance.

Aiden stayed silent and got back to wiping the countertop clean of dust with a tattered rag he kept in his coat pocket. The dust itself was invasive. When it first hit the Lottid south, people would try to keep up with it—cleaning any grey layer they came across. But the dust kept coming, and each storm grew stronger. Soon, all people could do was adapt to it, like a new limb, except this limb’s muscles wouldn’t move. Its purpose was to weigh you down and fill your lungs—to reach its dense claws into every opening of your body and clog you up.

“Why are you working so much?” Vic asked.

To Aiden, his tone made the question sound intrusive—overbearing. He shrugged. “Bored, I guess.”

Vic laughed, “You’re right, that was a stupid question. It’s just. If, maybe, you tell me what’s going on I can help.”

“Well, there’s nothing to be helped.”

“Yeah, it looks like it,” Vic said as he turned away from Aiden.

“I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Vic turned back around and sighed. “Okay, then. Thanks for the heads up. When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure. I have to get something. It’s for my mom.”

“Aiden, you know I can’t just let you–”

“I’ll find another job, then.” Aiden interrupted. He looked up at Vic for the first time in this conversation, and held eye contact. “I’m going. You can tell me what that means for me, but I’m going.”

Vic’s elbow was resting against the bar top. The golden hue from the evening sun shined through the dust-filled windows and lit the side of his face. He had taken down the fabric from his nose which left the strict line splitting the dust-layered half of his face from the protected bottom of it.

“Okay,” Vic said. “We’ll talk about it when you get back. Whenever that is.” He patted his hand against the bar top in a motion of resolution, and walked away.

Aiden’s mom needed Bhelock. It was the only medicine that could cure her, and it wasn’t available at any market in Lottid. The dust took the place of plants in the south. More importantly, he, nor anyone else in the south for that matter, had ever seen it. Aiden had no idea what it looked or felt like. Its existence had become a myth, and its proof lies in the Arcaten temples, where The Garden is said to be.

*

The storms were more intense at night. Aiden could hear the wind moaning outside his mother’s boarded windows, and the dust scratching the house’s surface. Though he couldn’t see anything while sitting next to her bed, El’s breathing seemed to mimic the sound outside. He reached out to find her hand, knowing that this would not be the last time he held it while there was life still racing through.

Aiden stepped out into the storm, using his canes to wade his way through the dunes of dust. The passage to The Garden was located in the Arcaten temples, south of Aiden’s home, and near what was once the Arcaten River. With the dust continuing to build, night by night, the temples’ entrances could only be marked by shadow rectangles in the side of one massive mound. Before the dust, and before the river dried, the temples were built to blend into the verdant hills of Arcaten. Each temple’s entrance was positioned on the outer edges of this circular formation. Aiden had only visited once before with his mother, but he had never been inside.

Now, as dawn approached, Aiden arrived at the entrance of the northern temple. The dark entrance beckoned him, guiding him down the stone hallway and into the center temple. Here, the light of the rising sun reverberated through the mound, reflecting off the stone and illuminating a light blue pool of water that lay at the heart of the place.

Aiden walked slowly to the water. He noticed now, though he didn’t at first, how clean it was. No dust or algae. No water source either. A pool of aquamarine resting, untouched, in the center of the temple. He kneeled to the ground beside the pool’s edge and touched his finger to the water—a test of reality.

A ripple met his finger and he looked up to find its source. For a split second he saw a dark shadow move in the foggy water—disappearing before he could get a glimpse of what it was. Aiden moved to the other side of the pool. Standing and looking down at it, the shadow came back to the surface and started moving around in a circle. It was in the shape of a large fish. A catfish with beady eyes and heavy whiskers flowing in the motion that the fish was swimming in. It kept circling, almost as if each circle were moving faster. Aiden’s vision began closing in around the fish’s growing image. Soon, it was all he could see. And what he wanted to do was touch it, to feel its slimy scales glide against his fingers.

He felt something close in around his hand. Looking down, there were two glittering eyes staring directly into his, and a wide mouth that bit down on his wrist and then let go. Aiden brought his hand up to examine it, but it was just the blurry image of his palm and fingers and red streams snaking down his forearm. He felt his body jerk forward and then everything went black.

When he woke he was underwater, but it was no longer the same glacier blue from before. This water would have been completely black if not for the waves of silver light that came from above. Aiden swam toward the light and broke the surface. His head whipped around until he spotted something he could grab onto—anything that wasn’t water.

The sound of a wet hand slapping against stone was one of the first things he could fully hear. Pulling his body up onto the ledge, he noticed the deep green color that peeked out from the cracks in the dark gray stone. Only the space around where his hand touched it glowed. Aiden pulled away out of instinct. Just as he did so, piece by piece, the glowing plant broke apart and floated upwards. Aiden followed their dance and that’s when he caught the image of the scene before him. No longer was he surrounded by stone, but plants. Some, a deep forest green but some were glowing  red and blue. Pulsing colors; pulsing as though they had heartbeats.

Aiden lifted himself off the ground. Holding his breath, he slowly panned his eyes across the place before him. The only light that existed came from the plants, and that was enough to illuminate the entire setting. A garden. He thought to himself.

He moved forward, watching the light from the plants beneath his feet glow with each footstep. Until one shot a line of light that illuminated the entire walkway. One after another, the glowing pieces began moving upwards.

“Shoes off,” a voice demanded from a distance.

He looked around but couldn’t see where it had come from.

“Shoes off,” the garden spoke again. This time, closer.

“What—I,” he responded.

“You’re disturbing them.”

The voice came from directly behind Aiden. Turning around he saw a woman towering over him. “Who—”

“Are they? The insects,” she said, pointing upwards at the dancing lights. “They don’t like shoes. Take them off.” Brushing past him, she started down the path. At the bottom of her gray cloak poked out two bare feet.

“No. I mean—”

“No?” She turned around. “You mean to tell me they do like shoes? Take them off.” Giving her final order, she flipped back toward the path in front of her and began walking.

He wasn’t going to take them off. He needed them and wasn’t going to be here for long. Walking in the direction that she went, he noticed that with each step the moss around his feet would glow. Behind him now formed a cloud of glowing and floating beads. Aiden ran but realized that he could not see her anymore. “Hello? I need help.”

“Help?” Her voice came from the side of him, and out of a patch of tall flowers her body shot up into a standing position. She held a basket in her hand that Aiden was sure she wasn’t carrying before. “What makes you think I can help you?”

“Not you. The Gardener.”

Her brows furrowed. She looked down at the shoes on his feet and back up at him. “Huh.”

“Do you know where I can find him? I mean this is The Garden isn’t it?”

She walked forward and back onto the path, closing in on Aiden. “Huh.”

“Can you not hear what I’m saying?”

After another moment’s pause, and an even longer moment of a confused look on her face, she finally responded, “This is The Garden. And The Gardener is here.”

“Take me to him.”

“No need.”

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

“As I told you, The Gardener is right here.”

Aiden looked around him for a second before he realized what the woman meant. “Oh. But you’re—”

“My apologies. Was I supposed to look different? Perhaps something like this.” In nearly an instant, a long gray beard appeared from her face, stretching all the way down to the floor, draping over her bare feet. “Is that male-gardener enough? Maybe a lower voice.” As she spoke that last sentence, her voice deepened and grew slightly coarse. She now looked and sounded like an old man.

Aiden didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he began analyzing every aspect of the person in front of him—if they even are a person—so as to find any trace of the woman that was once there. He couldn’t find one.

The woman, who was not a woman anymore, began walking away, picking up the bottom of his beard so it didn’t drag against the floor. Aiden followed him as he made his way toward the gazebo.

“Wait,” Aiden said. “Just give me the medicine.” But the man did not stop. The man just kept walking, tapping the tip of rolled up leaves and watching each one fan out and glow blue in reaction. Aiden tapped a bud himself but all it did was shudder and move in a way that he could only relate to a huff. He looked up to see the old man sitting in the gazebo in the center of the garden, his head hunched over.

“Bhelock. I need it for medicine. How much is it?” Aiden asked as he walked up the steps of the gazebo.

“How much?” the man said. The basket in his lap held bright green berries that he was picking the red leaves from one by one and placing them in another basket. “The plants are not commodities.”

“Do you just give them away then?”

“Give them away,” he mimicked. “Not to you.”

“What?”

The old man looked at him and said nothing. Instead he itched his beard and lightly yanked on it. The beard vanished, as well as all other aspects of him. The appearance of the woman from before came into fruition.

“Why won’t you give it to me? I don’t think you understand; my mother is sick. Give me the medicine.”

“I know your mother is sick. I know you have a younger sister who left you and your mother and headed north. I know you haven’t heard from her since. I know your last name is Bethair and your mother won’t tell you where it comes from. I know that your father died in an accident at his job that you think you caused. Yet you resent your mother and sister for it—you pass the blame onto them because you can’t bear to resent yourself. I know you, Aiden. Who you are. What you think you deserve—what’s rightfully yours. Not you. Not now.”

“So you won’t give it to me then?” 

She rose abruptly, put down the basket, and walked down the stairs and back onto the path. Aiden stood in the gazebo and watched her until he could no longer see her. His jaw clenched, but it was not from anger. This clenching came with a weight pressing down on his chest. The same feeling he would get while looking at his mother suffering in her bed.

What now? He thought to himself. Then he thought about what the woman said to him. ‘What you think you deserve.’

Did wanting his mother to live mean he was selfish? Surely not. Surely, the woman got the wrong impression of him. Surely.

If he couldn’t get Bhelock here, he’d go to the council; go to Ordinem and ask for their help. And if they said no, he would force them. He thought of all the things he could do—to the council, The Garden and The Gardener with it, to his sister, and to himself. He’d raise every plant and insect and fish from their homes in search of the medicine. But he didn’t. What good would it do? She’d still be sick.

At the start of the path, Aiden saw a faint glowing light in the moss. He bent down and placed his hand near it. The light flickered and moved onto his fingers. It was then that he saw it for what it was. A red beetle with a glowing body and one wing bent upward. He looked down at the patch of moss where he had found it and saw the footprint of the boots that were still on his feet.

Its wings kept moving up and down slowly, as if just learning how to do so. But it never rose. Aiden looked to the other dancing lights and back to the one flickering in his hand. He lowered it back into the moss, but in a section he hadn’t yet stepped on. Sitting on the stairs of the gazebo, he unlaced his shoes and slid them off his feet. Now being able to feel the cool repose of the moss and stone when he pressed his foot down, and saw that the moss no longer glowed in reaction to the pressure.

The two baskets were behind him, one still full of berries not yet separated from their leaves. Aiden sat in the same place The Gardener had been. Taking each fragile berry and plucking off the scarlet leaves. He noticed now that the bite on his wrist was beginning to heat up. Examining it, he saw the skin around each notch from the fish’s teeth was swollen.

Noticing how the insects no longer glowed in reaction to his footsteps, he still made an effort to put most of his weight on the stone instead—tip-toeing from square to square until he found her.

She was kneeling by the edge of the pond. Her hands working in the water. Aiden could see tiny white fish swirling around as she pulled her hand out of the water. In her palm was one of the fish, not quite as fast as the others and slightly smaller too. The Gardener touched her finger to the fish’s body and then it stopped moving entirely. He placed the basket down by her and kneeled.

“You’ve decided to take your shoes off,” she said.

“Was it dying?”

“Already. Yes.”

“Why didn’t you save it? You have the power to.”

“Balance,” she said. “You don’t meddle with them.”

“Then what are you here for? This is your garden. You meddle in some way or another. You have to.”

She paused and looked ahead of her to the pond. “Support, I suppose. We both need each other. So I give, and they give, and the cycle continues.”

Aiden had no answer. His eyelids tightened.

“I am The Gardener, yes, but this is not my garden. I do not own them. I live with them and they live with me.” She placed her palm back in the water, gently releasing the fish’s body back to where it came from. “What did you separate the berries for?”

“I don’t know. I saw it needed to be done. Nothing, I don’t think.” He saw a slightly bigger fish swim to the surface and open its mouth to swallow the dead white body. “I felt bad.”

“Yes, I guess you would have.” She placed her hand back into the water, and between her fingers sprouted two spiral plants. Closing her fingers together, she pulled up to pluck them and place them on the water above the fish. One by one, the tiny white bodies clung to the plants, feasting on their nutrients.

“How did you know. Before. How did you know all of that?” Aiden asked.

“I knew as soon as you touched the water in the temple,” she replied.

“How?”

“I do not know everything.” Her gaze lifted and scanned The Garden. “Out of everything here, you may be the one thing I understand the most.”

Aiden didn’t know what to say. He had nothing to say in return, so he scanned The Garden just as she did. He studied its heartbeat—every single living thing coming together in unison. Creating one life-line. One garden.

“Can you help her?” Aiden asked.

She sighed and stood up. “I need the leaves.”

“Please.” 

“Not you. Not now.” She picked up the basket and turned toward the center of the garden. Just then, a rustle from the cluster of plants beside the pond caused both Aiden and The Gardener to look toward it. A large flower came peeking out and reached toward his wrist, wrapping each petal around the bite. Aiden could feel its cold slime and with it immediate relief. The flower backed into the plants again and Aiden saw the red irritation around each wound fade away.

The woman sighed, her face sinking with vexed eyes. “The Garden and I—we disagree sometimes. Come. Get your shoes, you’re leaving.”

Aiden followed her to the center of the garden where he grabbed his shoes, and The Gardener grabbed the basket of leaves. She placed each scarlet piece into a mortar. From behind her, a tall flower bent down; its yellow bloom was shaped like a dragon’s snout, and its mouth produced a translucent gel that dripped into the bowl. “Thank you,” she said and began working the ingredients with her pestle. When she was done, she handed the paste to Aiden, avoiding direct eye contact.

“This isn’t Bhelock,” he said.

“It is what The Garden has provided. Which means it is what you need. No more questions, they’re annoying. Take it or leave with nothing.”

Aiden took it. “Thank you,” he said. But the Gardener wasn’t the only being he directed it to.



BIO




Bay Sandefur is an undergraduate student at Rocky Mountain College. If she isn’t writing, she’s reading, and if she isn’t doing that, she’s avoiding an existential crisis by walking barefoot in her mother’s garden. 







H.R.

by Chris Brower



She says, “It’s time. You need to do it today.”

I consider my Outlook calendar and debate where to put it, at what time we should fire Bernard Vandeman. Bernard, an “elder” at the company, a “forefather.” But with how poorly the company’s been doing, it’s been decided that even elders and forefathers have to go sometime too. Not by me—by committees, by people who give the orders, by people who look at the numbers and guess how to salvage things.

“Be gentle,” Tammy, my boss, says. She’s staring at her cell phone and holding an apple. “He can be pretty sensitive.”

The company’s in bad shape, which Bernard had little to do with. Nor almost anyone who’s been let go. Not that that matters. The demand for aluminum siding, what Hoelscher & Sons manufactures, has gone out of favor, and the millions the company spent on advertising didn’t change that. But there have been other setbacks. A huge investment that fell apart in a subsidiary that made insulation. A sexual harassment lawsuit against our CFO that cost the company millions and generated a lot of bad press. A fire at one of our plants.

“And, oh boy, Stephanie is not happy about it,” Tammy says, raising her eyebrows.

Stephanie’s Bernard’s boss. Just a couple years older than me, this still makes her at most half Bernard’s age. Per company policy, she’ll be handling the firing, with me there as the H.R. representative. The folder with “what now” information for terminated employees will come from my hands, slid across the table as if a peace offering.

As usual my calendar is packed. Meetings without agendas. Lunch with my sister, Debbie. And by 4:00 I need to finish revising the new mission statement and corporate objectives for next week’s all-staff forum aimed at quelling the nerves of concerned employees, even though the words “all-staff” always cause alarm.

“How has he worked here forty-nine years? That’s since day one,” Tammy says. She tosses the barely eaten apple into the trash. “That’s just—wow.”

I have only worked here two, my fifth job since graduating a decade ago. Few people my age stay in the same job longer than a few years. Doing so is a sign of weakness, a lack of ambition. No one in my generation aspires to work for the same company their whole career. And in a lot of ways, companies don’t want us to either.

“No clue why he hasn’t retired by now. Or been let go already,” Tammy says. “A lot of people are gonna be upset.”

From what I’ve heard, Bernard has been the Santa Claus at our company holiday party every year since its founding 49 years ago. When Suellen Reed got sick last year, he arranged a fundraiser to help with medical expenses. (Suellen was laid off a month ago.) And on my first day, he gave me a framed four-leaf clover he had apparently found nearby at Potter Park. He said it would bring me luck here. At the time I thought it was kind of corny, but I see now it was a sweet gesture from a man who always wants everyone to feel welcome.

I don’t like participating in firings, period, and I’ve been the one to do it lately, because the woman who did that was herself fired, but firing Bernard feels different, worse, like pulling the plug on a kindly, elderly relative who has only ever been nice to you.

1:00 p.m., after I get back from lunch with Debbie: That seems as good a time as any to fire Bernard Vandeman. I send an email to Stephanie to make sure that works with her schedule. Hopefully she’ll do most of the talking.

I lean back, staring at the ceiling, doing my best not to glance at the framed four-leaf clover on the wall. I’m not sure it’s worked.

*

I got into human resources because I like helping people. I like smoothing the edges of my co-workers’ day-to-day lives, making things a little better. But the reality is, for each person I call to offer a job, there are dozens more to whom I have to say, “Sorry.” For each “Yes, unused vacation time can be rolled over into next year—enjoy!,” there are several more, “Sorry, that privilege doesn’t extend to hourly employees.”

Employees see a lot of me when they start. And almost as much when they leave.

When I got hired, Hoelscher & Sons was a pay cut (that pay has since been lowered even more, as part of a company-wide effort to reduce expenses), but they lured me in with talk of endless opportunity at a fast-paced, rapidly growing company, of me being on a path to be head of H.R. in just two or three years. I guess that may still be true, but less so because of my own advancement and more that almost everyone in the H.R. department has been laid off these last few months. Soon I may be the only one left, if that.

*

After my third cup of tea and my third meeting of the day (why I was asked to attend a marketing meeting, I don’t know, but I don’t want to make a fuss, I don’t want to come off as negative), I step into the bathroom at the end of the floor. The company spent considerable money a year ago—money they probably wish they could get back—updating the bathrooms, installing dimmer, almost mood, lighting, automatic soap dispensers, and toilets that are more eco-friendly.

I pause when I notice Bernard Vandeman hunched over one of the sinks.

“Oh hello, Peter! Morning,” he says. He’s running a comb through his thin, white hair. He has to be at least seventy-five.

“Oh. Hey, Bernard. Good morning.”

I start to wash my hands too, despite the fact I haven’t used the urinal yet.

Bernard checks his hair in the mirror. He seems like a man of a different era, a man who carries a small comb in his pocket and makes sure to tidy up a couple times a day. His hairstyle isn’t demanding either. Just combed straight across. I’ve seen him use a handkerchief before. I’ve seen him hold driving gloves on the way to his car.

“Very appreciative of what you all did,” Bernard says. He grabs a paper towel and wipes his hands.

“Oh?”

“The birthday card last week.”

“Oh yeah, happy to.” As I dry my hands too, I try to remember if I signed anything. So many birthday cards come through H.R. that it’s hard to remember. I usually just scribble my name and some generic message (“Great to have you at the company!” “Keep it up!”) and then pass it to the next person.

(The company is considering phasing out birthday cards. We’d save a few hundred dollars a year.)

“Can you believe I’m 76?” Bernard says and whistles as his reflection in the mirror.

“Oh, yes—I mean, no.”

Bernard laughs.

I step to the urinal, unzip my pants, and begin trying to release the copious amounts of tea I’ve had so far today. I’m hoping this signals to Bernard that our small talk is over, since everything he says is only making me sadder for what I have to do to him later. But Bernard is from the generation that sees little problem in carrying on long conversations while one or both parties are peeing.

“My own daddy didn’t even make it to sixty!” Bernard says. “He was born in 1915, can you believe it?”

“Oh?” I say from the urinal, trying to will my bladder to begin doing its duty.

Bernard blows his nose, a loud honk that makes me jump, and then continues his musing. “He also never got to celebrate fifty years in a job, but that’s coming for me in three months—87 days specifically! Can’t wait to celebrate. I hope you’ll be there? I’m gonna get an enormous cake. Hope you like lemon . . .”

I remain silent at the urinal, my shyness making it hard to pee or talk.

“Peter?”

I close my eyes, clenching.

“Oh, yes, um, I’d love to be there. That sounds, that sounds really great.”

“Good! You’ve been one of my many wonderful friends here. It’s true.” He sniffs. “Well, back to the grind.”

Bernard steps over and pats me on the shoulder, his hand still wet, and then shuffles out of the bathroom.

*

I order a salad with dressing on the side, feeling instantly disappointed at my choice.

“Is that cause I’ve gained weight?” my sister says after the waiter leaves.

“What?”

“I ordered penne pasta and a Coke, and you got a salad and water.”

“Oh. No, I’m just trying to eat a little healthier. I gave up caffeine too. I’m just trying things.”

Debbie sits back. Shakes her head.

I look her over, trying to be covert. She doesn’t look like she’s gained weight. Well, maybe a little. She’s still pretty thin. She’s been divorced only a month now. Divorces seem to require some noticeable shift in weight, whether gained or lost.

She speaks up, “Stuart always made comments. ‘Storing up for winter?’ ‘Maybe ease up a little on the carbs, babe.’ ”

“Oh.” I heard him say such things. I told him to cool it, but he just shrugged me off. “That’s awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that. You didn’t deserve it.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” Debbie glares at me.

I shrink, worrying my response was too soft, too lame, that I should’ve called Stuart a “fucking asshole” or something else more forceful. I can be passive, I can be soft, I know. I think working in human resources has made me robotic at times. Doing things by the book. Aiming for calmness and mediation rather than outrage, even when outrage is justified.

I pick up my napkin and then put it down. “Have you spoken to Mom?”

I haven’t talked to Mom in a couple weeks. I need to call her soon. After Dad died, she became a bit of a recluse, spending all her time at home, toiling over jigsaw puzzles and crocheting blankets she donates to the church, even though she doesn’t attend services anymore. She says these days she prefers to be alone.

“She’s not doing any better,” Debbie says. “We’re really bonding lately with our depression. We’re comparing meds.”

I lean forward, almost touch her hand. “Debbie, don’t give up. You know things are gonna get better. They always do.”

Debbie rolls her eyes. “You know that’s not true.”

I lean back.

The waiter returns and refills my water.

“Another Coke, ma’am?”

Debbie stares at me. I turn away.

“Okay,” she says.

*

I return to work a little before 1:00. Stephanie is expecting me in a few minutes. In her email to me earlier she said, “I am REALLY upset about this. I cannot lie.”

Tammy is in her cube, nibbling at a salad of her own. An uneaten apple waits nearby.

“Oh good,” she says, chewing quickly. “How’d he take it?”

“Not yet. Gonna head over there now.”

“Okay.” She stares at me. Squints her eyes. “. . . You okay?”

*

I step slowly toward the Sales department on the second floor. The company owns two floors but is considering selling one. They’ve already removed the fish tanks, the water coolers and vending machines, and the Rothko painting that our (former) CEO would always show visitors and prospective hires (“Imagine working alongside such majesty . . .”). By my hip I’m carrying a nondescript black notebook, which hides the folder of termination documents: COBRA and last paycheck information, resources for newly unemployed workers, and a form letter with thanks and motivational words from the interim CEO.

Things are quiet in Sales. The few employees still around are younger, more prone to wearing headphones all day, less likely to use the phone as a way to talk. Or to talk to each other, really. One employee, Yvonne Hendricks, eyes me with a look of fear before turning back to her computer, her body appearing tense. I’m used to looks these days. I rarely walk around other departments unless I have bad news to share.

I arrive at Stephanie’s cubicle. She’s sitting in her chair, gripping the armrests with both hands, her eyes large, staring into space, like a nervous flier during takeoff.

Her expression doesn’t change when she turns to face me.

“Hi, Stephanie,” I say.

She shakes her head. She rises from her chair, as if hoisted, and I follow her to an abandoned room nearby, formerly the marketing manager’s office. I have no idea what’s going on.

She closes the door, appearing scared.

“I’m just sick about this,” she finally blurts out in an exasperated whisper.

“Me too. I wish we didn’t—”

“I don’t think this is right. There are limits.”

I nod. “I know it’s tough. I’m upset about it too, and—”

“It’s ageist. Have you thought about the potential lawsuit? Have you even thought about that?”

“Of course. We—”

“I will not participate in this,” she says. “I can’t stop you, but I simply will not.”

She opens the door and hurries out of the room, leaving me there, confused. She’s supposed to handle the termination, not me. I’m supposed to be in a supportive role, as well as making sure employment laws are followed.

As much as it hurts to fire Bernard Vandeman, I thought at least I wouldn’t be doing it alone, that it wouldn’t feel like solely “my” doing. But I need to do what I’ve been told.

*

Peaking my head in Bernard’s cubicle, I see him working away, bent over his computer. He’s from the era of employees who still type with one finger at a time. His computer looks to be from the ’90s, with a boxy off-white monitor and keyboard. He still uses a mouse pad.

I knock on the cubicle wall.

Bernard peers up. “Oh, Peter! Hi there.”

He swivels in his chair to face me. His right shoe is untied.

“Hi, Bernard. How are you?”

“Well, I’m doing just fine—say, got some leads I’m excited about. Gonna stay late and see what I can make happen.”

“Ah, that’s great.” I tap my hand on the top of the cubicle wall. “Say, how about you and I go over to the conference room by the window. Got a minute?” This is what Stephanie’s supposed to be doing, while I wait in the room with the termination folder and a box of tissues if Bernard should need them.

“Oh?” His smile fades. “Sure. Uh, gimme a second.”

I don’t know if I should wait for him or not. He appears to be straightening a few papers. Getting things neat and tidy. He’s probably a man who needs time before moving anywhere.

I walk over to the conference room and take a seat, making sure not to have my hands clasped and positioned on the table. That looks too disciplinarian. My high school principal did that, and you always felt like you were in trouble, and you always were.

I place the black notebook on the table, leaving the termination folder inside. Tissues—where are they? I should’ve put a box in here before I came.

Bernard hobbles in straight-faced and then slowly lowers himself into a chair, his arms shaking as they grip the armrests for support.

He looks at me and exhales. “Always feels better to get off my feet,” he says, laughing.

“Yeah. Me too.”

I get up to close the door and then return to my seat.

“Bernard, you’ve been a valued employee since the beginning of Hoelscher & Sons—”

“Oh yes, an absolute honor to work here.”

I nod. “And it goes without saying that everyone here is forever grateful that—”

“I remember that first day like it was last week. It was a June 13th, I believe.”

I blink. “You know the exact date?”

“Of course.” He gazes wistfully over my shoulder. “I guess that was before you were even born. Long before.”

I chuckle to seem laidback and relaxed, as if I’m not about to fire him.

“Been a long time,” I say.

“Indeed it has. Hard to believe. Though, I guess when you get to my age that’s a lot of what you do: marvel that so much time has passed. And boy, does it.”

I clear my throat. “So—”

“And soon after I started I got married. High school sweetheart. Martha Fairchild. Prettiest girl in the class. That was an exciting time, indeed. I was married forty-five years, can you believe it?”

I pause at his use of past tense. Was.

“Oh, I’m—”

“My wife left this world some years ago,” Bernard continues. “November 15th, 2014, mm-hmm. And my son still lives at home. He’s retarded, unfortunately, so he requires a lot of care and will for the rest of his life.”

I want to urge Bernard not to say the word “retarded,” but it’s his own son he’s talking about. I don’t know the protocol for that.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, but then feel bad implying that having a special needs son is something co-workers should say they’re “sorry to hear.”

“He’s a fun little fellow, indeed,” Bernard says. “His spirit is enviable, but quite a lot of work. We’ve had to have help his entire life, and now that Martha’s gone, I’ve had to get more.” Bernard purses his lips. Shakes his head. “And maybe I should’ve done a better job saving and investing when I was younger. That’s why an old man like me is still working—in addition to that I love it, of course.” He laughs, then grows serious again. “There was just always something. My wife was disabled too. Wheelchair-bound.”

I suck on my lip. I scratch at something on the table.

“Do you have a wife and kids?” Bernard asks, suddenly looking sad.

“No—I mean, I’d like to.” I’ve dated some but not much. Maybe I need to get out there more, try to meet people, try to make things happen. But much of the time I think I’m just too scared by the whole thing, by the rejection, by how hard it all is. I guess I had always assumed that by 32 I would’ve found someone. “I hope one day.”

“You seem like a fine man. I’m sure you’ll find a special lady for yourself.” He winks.

“Oh. Thanks.”

My guilt is only growing. Bernard seems like a great guy, a great father, a great husband. Enthusiastic but humble. Always kind. I can see why Stephanie feels so morally opposed to firing him. I do.

For a moment, I wonder what if I didn’t go through with it? What if I didn’t fire Bernard Vandeman? Just refused. Stephanie did. I’ll probably myself be getting let go soon anyway. Though, of course, someone else would eventually fire him. But at least it wouldn’t be me.

“And say,” Bernard says, “maybe you’d, well, please don’t feel like you have to say yes, but, but, maybe you’d like to come over for dinner sometime? We haven’t had anyone over in years. You might like my son. He can be a real hoot.”

“Ah.” I stare down at the table. It’s scuffed and dusty.

“He’s very nice and friendly. I know people get nervous around retarded people. But they shouldn’t.”

“Oh, of course. Of course.” I pick at my ear. I inhale and exhale. “Bernard, we, well, I hate to say this. But we have to let you go.”

His genial smile drops.

“What with the economic forces at play, the challenges the company has faced, we’ve had to make some tough decisions,” I say, my heartbeat picking up. I notice my hands are clasped on the table. I drop them to my lap. “I’m happy to go into more details, but before I go into further explanation and next steps, I’d like to give you a chance to speak, if you’d like.”

Bernard’s lips start moving like he’s chewing something. His cheeks sink in. Then puff out. His jaw moves side-to-side.

“Is it because my numbers were poor last quarter?” he says. “I can assure you I’ve been working to fix things. I can get better. I always have. I have some leads I’m confident about. I will stay late until I get some solid numbers again.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s already been decided. I’m sorry.”

His eyes fall to the table.

“But we’re here to help,” I say. “We want to make this, um, y’know, this transition as smooth as possible. I have a packet of information that can, I think, help you in this.” I touch the black notebook, and then open it up to reveal a sky-blue folder with a stock photo of two hands joined together in a handshake. “It has lots of valuable tips and resources.” I slide it his way.

He glances at it but doesn’t pick it up.

“It has insurance information,” I say. “You’re entitled to—”

He struggles to scoot his chair away from the table. Starts rising to his feet, shaky and slow.

“There’s no hurry,” I say. “You don’t need to leave just—”

He takes a couple steps and then collapses to the ground.

*

“Why were you so quiet at lunch?” Debbie says over the phone. I called her after leaving work, needing to speak to someone. “You always act nervous and awkward around me. Are you embarrassed of me?”

“Not at all. Not at all. I was just upset about work things. I had to—”

“You’re in your head too much.”

“What? No, I’m not—”

“I’m worried about you.”

Me?” I say.

“You just seem so glum lately. I mean, I have a good reason to be down. So does Mom. But what’s yours?”

“Does someone have to have a reason?” I say, adding some edge to my voice, hoping she’ll quit harping me.

“You have one. So what is it?”

I pause.

“Well . . . I quit my job a few minutes ago. There was a thing that happened today that—”

“You quit your job?” She sounds intrigued, almost excited.

“I, I can’t stand only giving people bad news anymore. I don’t like it feeling like my fault.”

“Okay. Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

*

At the hospital I’m told Bernard Vandeman is in room 2562. I feel compelled to visit him, not only because I feel somewhat responsible, but also because he doesn’t seem to have much family anymore. Will his special needs son be there? Will the son understand what’s going on? (And is that bad to assume he might not be able to comprehend medical emergencies?)

The hall on the second floor is quiet, sterile, except for the shuffling of feet of nurses and visitors. It smells like disinfectant. There are hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere. And almost everything is a shade of white, except for the pieces of “art” hanging on the walls, bland as if made not to be noticed.

Outside room 2562 the door is slightly open. I don’t know the etiquette for this.

I knock hesitantly, not expecting an answer.

“Come in,” says a man, surprising me, a man not Bernard Vandeman.

I push open the door and walk inside, where a middle-aged man is standing near the bed that holds Bernard, Bernard asleep with wires and tubes hooked up to him and an oxygen mask over his face.

I back up. “Oh, I’m sorry. I can—”

“No, please,” the man says. He’s wearing a pinstriped suit, his hair is slicked back, and his face is flawless, as if it’s never had a blemish of any kind. He looks like he just came from work, a politician, a lawyer, a D.A., someone who stands in front of people and commands respect. “You’re welcome to come in. You are?”

“I’m Peter from Hoelscher & Sons.” I leave out that I am no longer an employee there.

“Oh, great,” the man says. He comes around the bed and grasps my hand. “Thanks for coming for my father. No one else from the company has come so far. Real nice that you came—he won’t forget it, I guarantee.”

“You’re—you’re his son?”

“Yes, Kevin Vandeman.”

The man doesn’t seem special needs—or maybe I’m drawing on offensive ideas of what a special needs person looks and acts like.

I glance at Bernard who’s propped up in bed, a hospital gown on, his eyes closed, and his heavy, thick eyebrows bunched as if in intense concentration. His breathing is labored and loud.

I hear Kevin say something.

“Sorry, what was that?” I’m suddenly having trouble paying attention.

“I was just asking what you do at the company.”

“Oh. H.R. department.”

“Mm,” Kevin says. “My dad loves it there. Can’t picture him ever retiring. I’m sure he’d even try to go back to work tomorrow if the doctors would let him.”

“Ah,” I say, lowering my eyes, embarrassed that he clearly doesn’t know his dad has been let go. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“We’ll see. There are still plenty of tests to be run, but he’s at least stable now.”

“Oh okay. Good.”

“He’s a strong man,” Kevin says. “He’s always—”

“Do you have a brother?” I blurt out.

“A brother?”

“Or, does your dad have another son—if that’s okay to ask.” Maybe I misheard Bernard earlier today. Maybe he has two sons, and the other is special needs. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

Kevin turns his head, puzzled. “If he has another son, I don’t know about it.”

I’m confused. I suddenly want to leave.

Footsteps come from behind me, and twisting to look, I see a woman, senior-aged, misty-eyed.

“The nurse will be in again in a minute,” she says to Kevin, who walks up to her and places his hands on her arms, consoling her. “They need to take some more blood.”

Kevin pulls her close and kisses the top of her head. He’s significantly taller than her. He’s as tall as his father.

“Oh, this is Peter from Dad’s work,” Kevin says, gesturing to me.

“Oh, pleasure. I’m Martha Vandeman.” She reaches for my hand and shakes it, my hand no doubt clammy from my growing bewilderment. “That is so sweet of you to come.”

“You . . .”—my posture dips, my eyes squint—“you’re Mr. Vandeman’s wife?”

“Mm-hmm. Forty-nine years. Fifty next August.”

Fifty,” Kevin marvels. He purses his lips as if to whistle, but no sound comes out.

“Bernard Vandeman,” I say.

“Mm-hmm.”

I nod slowly, my head resembling that of a confused bobblehead doll. I don’t know whether to laugh or be angry. But I can’t believe my lack of perception, how I believed everything Bernard told me—though why wouldn’t I have?

I look at Bernard whose hands are by his side, outstretched, his hands red and large. He looks uncomfortable. I still don’t exactly understand what happened to him at the office. I just remember yelling for help, dialing 911 on my cell phone, the paramedics rushing in a few minutes later with a stretcher, one of them ripping open Bernard’s white dress shirt, exposing his fleshy stomach with patches of white hair and numerous moles, the other paramedic pressing on his chest for a minute before they hurried Bernard out.

“Peter?”

“Huh?”

Martha is facing me, speaking. “Would you like to join us in a prayer?”

“Oh.” I desperately want to leave. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. “Okay.”

Kevin and Martha move closer to the bed, and I join them, and then they start holding hands, and Martha reaches out for mine, and I wait a moment before finally grasping hers.

Kevin and Martha bow their heads, and I do too, closing my eyes like them. I haven’t prayed in a long time.

“Dear Lord,” Kevin says, his voice weak like he might start crying. “Our father is a good, good man. Please watch over him as he recovers, if it’s in your plan, and help him to . . .”

After a moment I can’t keep my eyes closed any longer, and I peer down at Bernard a few feet from me, and a resentment blooms in my body at this man, this liar, this co-worker I feel both sorry for and angry at. Is anything I know about him true?

“ . . . and help our family to count our blessings and . . . ”

My body tenses and I can’t help but squeeze Martha’s hand a little tighter, a pulse of frustration escaping my body, and my face changes into a glare, a scowl, and part of me wants to lunge at Bernard Vandeman, shake him awake, to see if he’s faking this too, to see just who he really is.

“Peter? Peter?”

I look up, and Kevin and Martha are staring at me with concern. We’re no longer holding hands.

“Are you, are you okay?”


BIO



Chris Brower is a writer from Chicago. He is the author of two novels, How to Keep Everyone Happy and I Look Like You. His essays and short fiction have appeared in The Hollywood Reporter, Write Room, Concho River Review, and 2am Muse.

www.chris-brower.com





In Your Dreams

by Noelle Shoemate



There are different types of screams—each one a battle cry to a certain horrific emotion. Sometimes the concavity of my mouth silences the sound, and yet I can still feel it ricochet through my lungs, vibrate around my tongue and get lost around my pulled molars. Her face looms over mine, a perfect round moon. Her green eyes have a reptilian quality when she smiles. When the trunk’s lid lowers over me, everything becomes the same shade of black.

***

The brochure for Anjelica’s Spa & Wellness digs into my palm as the plane gracelessly lands on the tarmac. It is hot. The sun overhead lends everything a phantasmagoric quality: A Dali-sequel trick of the eye.

“Welcome to sunny Phoenix. It is currently 115 degrees,” intones the captain.

“They better have a pool,” says Lulu.

***

Two months ago, working at Tell You a Story, a downtown Brooklyn bookstore, I unpacked boxes of a self-help book entitled How to Sleep Better. I scoffed at the cover art: a girl in a yellow chemise sleeping in the middle of a field of sunflowers. She looked peaceful. Dust motes flew around me as I read an endorsement of the book and its author, Dr. Clinton. A spotlight directed towards your dreams, refusing to allow any parts of your mind to cause fear, written by a PhD researcher and expert on the neural patterns of sleep. I read another testimonial from a woman named Gillian B—My boyfriend wants to sleep over now; I don’t scare him any more with my nightmares.

“I wish,” I said to no one in particular. As I thumbed through the back of the book, I saw that the author ran a nightmare support group in Manhattan. On Sundays.

I slashed a purple-colored lipstick across my mouth and took the F train to the Midtown address, 123 East 38th street. Housed between a Starbucks and a dry cleaner was an unremarkable brick building from the Federal period. I pushed the building’s button three times for the sixth floor, and then realized the elevator wasn’t working. I’d had minimal sleep and no time for coffee; I trudged up the stairs, hand on my lower back. Right before I arrived at the sixth floor, I stopped to catch my breath.

“Breakfast of champions,” came a voice. Platinum blonde hair flashed in my eyes. A girl I wished I looked like blew smoke in my face.

“Nightmares?” I asked.

“You coming? I’m Lulu,” she said, showing me her only imperfection, her snaggle tooth. Inside the room there were about twenty chairs in a semi-circle. It was institutionally ugly, with floor-to-ceiling windows that needed a good wash. The tube lighting hummed faintly. Everyone had a green-tinged Walking Dead complexion. Lulu was the only one who looked like she genuinely did not belong.

“Come here,” she said, leading me to a metal folding table. I wrote my name across a paper nametag with a bubblegum-scented marker. “Now you’re legit.” Next, she dragged me to an adjacent table filled with urns of coffee and an assortment of sweets, including little bags of Skittles. She took two and insisted I take two as well. Afterwards we tripped over people’s legs, making our way to side-by-side chairs.

“Hello, hello, little ones,” boomed a voice like the groan of a tugboat. I turned toward the doorway. Dr. Clinton was a giantess, at least 6’4” with an arm’s worth of jangling gold bracelets.

“New blood,” said Dr. Clinton. She pulled a dog clicker out of the pocket of her drapey sweater and clicked it at me. “Tell us your name. What you do. And why you’re here.”

Hating to be the center of attention, I internally groaned. “Sophia. I have a master’s in creative writing. I work at a bookstore until I finish the great American novel. And my nightmares end up chasing every single potential boyfriend away.”

Everyone raised their left hand and said, “We see you, welcome.”

“Break time,” said Dr. Clinton. Bewildered with the group’s trajectory, I was ready to leave, but Dr. Clinton touched my shoulder with her baseball mitt hand and said I might get more out of the group if I sat next to someone else. “Class clown,” said the doctor.

Lulu rolled her eyes behind Dr. Clinton and then motioned for me to follow her back to our seat. She opened her purse. It was filled to the brim with more Skittles.

“Only the red ones,” she said, pouring the rest into the rubber plant behind our seats. Despite my fatigue, I felt awakened. I had never known anyone who suffered from what I did.

Lulu played with the gold Victorian-style locket dangling from her neck, opening and closing it continuously. I reached across to peek inside.

“My business,” she said, and slapped my hand away. She forced a laugh. “No sleep, no manners,” she said, clearly embarrassed for her behavior.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Well, it’s totally weird but we’re all semi haunted here. But listen. I like you; I was an English major too.”

When I asked her where she went to school, she said vaguely, “California, small school.”

“Want to hear my nightmare?” she asked, shaking a few red Skittles into my hands.

I nodded. She fiddled with her locket. I waited.

“One night I couldn’t sleep and decided to take a walk into the woods,” she began. “For some reason, I was barefoot. It was so cold—snow hung like curtains on the bare trees. A voice called my name. Come here, I heard. At the clearing, there was a half-frozen pond. A naked woman signaled to me with her long fingers. They reminded me of snakes. Come here, I heard again—she teased me along. By the time I reached the woman, the pond’s surface cracked all over. The ice breaking apart was the loudest sound—it repeated thousands of times in my head. When my hands met her bony wrist, she pushed me into the water’s small opening. Her jaw unhinged and I saw she had no teeth. She screamed at me and never stopped.”

“That’s almost as messed up as my nightmares,” I said. I squeezed the roundest part of her shoulder, feeling I had known Lulu for a long while.

A shrill whistle sounded, indicating that break was over.

From the hall, Dr. Clinton appeared, pushing a rolling cart laden with a birthday cake blazing with candles. Vanilla icing dripped down the sides from the overheated room.

“Happy Birthday, little ones. We’re giving birth to our dreams by sharing the dark recesses of our minds.” Dr. Clinton’s face shone almost unnaturally; her fingers cobwebbed together in delight. “It is very simple, the business of nightmares. There is a finite amount of them—like people’s kinks. There are really four, I believe: being haunted or haunting someone; being chased by something or hurt by someone; not being able to speak and/or being paralyzed; and lastly, the monster of many faces, which is an archetype for intergenerational trauma.”

A collective hush followed. The whole group was lulled into introspection, wondering how Dr. Clinton would characterize their dreams.

“Which one of you would like to volunteer?” No one offered; the tension in the room was palpable. She laughed and pointed the dog clicker at the saddest sack of a guy, whose nametag said Milton R.

“You’re up,” she said, rubbing her hands with anticipation. His old baby face flushed a deep red.

He leaned back in his chair, the legs scratching against the hardwood floor. “Ever since I was little, I dreamed I was being erased. A giant pink rubber school eraser would start at my feet. First, I would lose my toes, especially the bent ones that were broken from running around while I slept.”

“A parasomnia case,” she sighed, fanning her hands in front of her generous chest. She turned her bovine eyes to us and explained that parasomniacs moved around and performed wakeful tasks when they slept. “I’m not bored,” she said. “Continue.”

“So the thing is, the eraser keeps erasing my flesh. Very neat. Going in lopsided circles.” I could feel the small hairs on my body singeing during his retelling. I thought about leaving, my body unaccustomed what to do with someone else’s trauma.

“What a crock right?” whispered Lulu. “An eraser. You got to give him credit. He’s making it up.”

I whispered my question: how could she know the difference from fake and real dreams?

“Experience.”

“We see you,” the group said.

***

 Arizona. I look over at Lulu in amazement—we have been friends for only three months. My stomach growls from the austerity diet we have been on to pay for what we both refer to as the wellness retreat.

“We are the Barbizon girls; this will be worth all of our sacrifices,” I say, tossing her a packet of beef jerky. It bounces off the steering wheel. She looks at me blankly. Dehydration is a thing in both the high and low desert, so I hand her a bottle of Poland Spring, wondering why she isn’t getting any of the literary references.

“This might be a mistake,” I say. It is my first time out west and the cacti remind me of an army, each one with arms raised, ready to vanquish an enemy troop.

“Girl, you need to relax.”  She hands me her vape pen. “I may or may not have added something besides cherry-flavored nicotine.” She taps the steering wheel with her filed-to-dagger nails. “What are your thoughts on children?” she asks me.

I laugh. We are on the young side of thirty. Single.

“Like now?” I cannot imagine taking care of a child. I can barely unravel myself from my nightmares, toting them around the way some mothers keep their babies in slings on their bodies.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m saying if it was the right opportunity.”

Opportunity. She looks at me with excitement and I don’t want to spoil the moment with my selfishness.

“Imagine! They’d have your organizational skills and those Bambi eyes,” she says, batting her lashes.

“It’s something I’ve always dreamed of, especially having a little girl,” I lie.

“Listen then, we could be mothers together!” Lulu says. She slows to a crawl because she’s squeezing my shoulder so tight.

A semi-truck’s horn blows behind us because Lulu is still driving the New York City speed limit. She flicks him off in the rearview mirror. We both laugh. Taylor Swift is our soundtrack. My eyes flutter, but my body jolts me awake, trying in vain to protect me from my own dreams.

“Don’t you dare go to sleep. I simply can’t deal with you shrieking yourself awake.”

I tap at the phone, angry that Google Maps says there is still another hour until our arrival at the retreat. Red lines show an accident up ahead. I wonder about the likelihood of our friendship. I feel like the grandmother in our little dyad: making us cookies, enforcing hydration. I ruffle through my out-of-style denim purse and pull out a bag of Skittles. I nudge her with my shoulder.

“Only red ones,” she says, as if I need a reminder. “This is everything,” she says, sticking her arm out the window, her yellow scarf fluttering around her like a children’s bike streamer on a windy day.

***

I stood outside of the nightmare group’s meeting space and debated whether it warranted going inside. I had zero faith that the doctor’s methodologies were going to work, other than to embarrass each one of us. I wound and unwound the stretchy Kelly-green keychain that housed all of my keys, spooling them around my arm. Dozens of them. I couldn’t let them go: a key to my gym locker that no longer worked because I quit the gym; keys to the house of an ex-boyfriend, who forgot to ask for them back because he was afraid of me. Suddenly I noticed Lulu exiting the room.

“You’re not backing out,” she said. The name Persephone was written on Lulu’s nametag. “You look like a jailer,” she said, pulling me inside. She maneuvered me past the bad coffee and grabbed a packet of Skittles from the metal table in the corner. “Give me the red ones,” she said. “It’s life or death.”

“You act like this place is a joke.”

“Isn’t it? I’ve tried everything else.”

We tossed along words like sleeping pills, laughing at their lack of efficacy.

“Hypnotherapy?” I said, citing promising research. She countered with EMDR, for trauma survivors, even though she insisted she’d had a very boring life.

“I started going to church,” I said, lowering my voice. “My grandmother said that maybe my nightmares proved I was possessed.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Tears streamed down her face; the wings of her eyeliner smudged.

“Group’s about to start,” said Dr. Clinton.

We walked back to our plastic chairs. I played with the Skittles in my packet until I heard my name.

“Your turn,” Dr. Clinton said, pointing the dog clicker my way. There was a palpable hush. It reminded me of the moment right before it happened in my dream. Cotton mouth. Feet soaked through my socks.

“What do I say?” I asked. The napkin was shredded in my hands, but I had no memory of doing that.

“Your nightmare, of course.”

I wondered if I could trust the other members of the group. Maybe one of them would create a podcast about nightmare-afflicted weirdos.

“I always had trouble sleeping—”

I was interrupted by her sigh. I cleared my throat and began again.

“When I was nine, my family moved to a sleepy town along the Hudson. An old Victorian house. My mother offered afterschool tutoring because my dad had lost his job. One of her students, Paula, was three years older than me. She was gorgeous like a Disney princess, but cruel. At first, she pretended to befriend me, but that meant playing by her rules. Paula created elaborate games for me to take part in, such as coming up with sociopathic tricks to play on my unsuspecting parents.

One spring day, she unzipped her raincoat’s interior pocket and took out a dead bird. Its delicate bones were crushed from falling out of a tree, and she told me to put it in the oven so my mother would find it. Another time, she dared me to climb up our ancient oak tree, scream bloody murder, then refuse to come down. We’re like sisters, she said. And I’m the only one that gets you.

“Sisters,” repeated Dr. Clinton.

“It might seem pathetic, but she was the only young person who talked to me because of the birthmark on my face.”

I steadied myself with three deep breaths. No one was laughing at me or showing pity. Reflexively, I rubbed at the faint outline of the birthmark, faded from many laser appointments.

“She started hurting me, pinching me in places my parents wouldn’t notice. She would pretend there was a bug in my hair and rip out strands. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I told my mother, but she said, We really need the money, lovely—just stay in your room.”

I paused.

“Do go on when you are ready,” said Dr. Clinton. Surprisingly she performed like a mental health clinician and said all the right things, furrowing her brow and clasping her hands to her heart.

“For two weeks I kept my distance. But, one day, I heard my name being called from outside my open window. Let me in, she said. I want to say I’m sorry. I ran downstairs to tell her to go home, but her face was pressed against the front door, shining like a Precious Moments figurine. When she asked me to open the door, I did.

My mom has something to fix your face, she said. But let’s keep this between you and me. Look in my bag.I reached inside her Jansen backpack. At the very bottom of the bag was a small beaker with a twist top. Drink it, she said. What is it? I asked. She motioned for me to follow her up the stairs.”

I cleared my throat, conscious that I was taking up so much time and space in the session.

“So much better than the eraser story,” whispered Lulu. I was aware that the session was about to end, by the slant of the sun and the sounds of the commuter crosstown bus. No one was showing any signs of leaving.

“When we got to the attic, she sat with me on the floor and said, Warning, it tastes bad. Unafraid, I swallowed the solution in one gulp. Nothing happened for a while. I got impatient. Without warning, a clear stream of liquid shot through my mouth. And then I lost all dignity—I soiled myself. With superhuman strength she dragged me to a wooden steam chest and then she put me inside like she was playing dolly with me.

Be a good girl now, she whispered. She closed the lid. I screamed but no sound came out of my mouth. My body was partially paralyzed. The sounds of the attic mice running around kept me company, while I prayed and got no response from God.

 “I scratched at the top of the trunk for hours. By the time my mom found me, I was unconscious, and three of my fingernails were ripped off, stuck in the trunk’s lid.”

Scribbling interrupted my retelling of my dreams; I surveyed the room to catch who was being rude and saw that it was Lulu. She was taking notes during my share?

“In these nightmares I feel my nails detach from my nail beds. I hear the mice scratch across the floors.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until Dr. Clinton said, “We’ll end here for today.”

Everyone left, except the doctor. And Lulu.

Dr. Clinton’s eyes were wild, and her red lipstick bitten off. She smelled like gunpowder; she smelled like fear. “I think you need more special attention,” she said, rifling through her bag.

Finally, she handed me a card for Anjelica’s Spa & Wellness.“I can’t have you come back. We aren’t set up for unpacking complex trauma, just garden-variety nightmares.”

Lulu pushed me out of the room, her soft hand woven into mine.

***

We pull up to Shanti Lodge. A crow circles overhead, which feels like a bad sign. Unprepared for the sharpness of the high desert night, we both pull our lightweight coats tighter around us.

“Bellhop,” jokes Lulu, as we walk on the gravel Zen path towards the hotel. My back left suitcase wheel gets stuck in the red dust that blankets everything. There is chanting in the distance.

The smell of sage is so strong, it seems piped out of the ceiling vents. Two statues of winged behemoths flank the reception desk. Lulu winks at me as she presses the reception bell one too many times. “Selfie,” I say, holding up my camera.

“Photos not allowed,” says the woman who sashays through the beaded curtain bifurcating the office and lobby.

The woman wears all white and offers us identical robes. Shoes are discouraged inside. “Cult chic,” says Lulu.

“They are dream eaters,” the woman says, noticing our obsessive stares at the statues. She tells us one of the former guests, back in the 1940s, was a sculptress. After staying at Shanti Lodge, she felt unburdened, her bad dreams gone. “Obviously, it’s a bit of folklore,” she says, flicking her bored eyes away from us.

She asks us to fill out some paperwork; red asterisks are placed where she needs our signatures. Dehydration, lucid dreams, and cold extremities are some possible side effects of the treatments offered.

“Anju has time to see both of you before dinner, if you’re interested.”

She tells us to drink some of the special spa water before every treatment: there is a glass container that contains slightly off-color water. Greedily, we down four paper cones between us, parched from our flight and the altitude. Schedules are thrust into our hands, outlining classes with names like Night Stargazer, Gong and Going Deeper. The hallway towards our shared room is an optical illusion. At first it seems there are dozens of doors lining the red-carpeted hallway. But, when we reach room three, we realize that the hallway is short, a hall you might find in a basic colonial house.

“It’s always confusing here,” Lulu says. When I tell her I thought this place was a first for us, she sticks her tongue out at me and says, “Nightmare brain.”

Our door is already open to the touch.

“Did we land in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Yellow Wallpaper?” I ask.

Lulu just looks at me. “Such a bookworm,” she says, moving our suitcase into the closet. To make a joke I tell her we won’t have lots of lovers on our trip, since there is only one skinny bed in the room.

“Nobody wants us anyway, since we scream and moan after the main event, when no one decent is still awake,” she says.

I gently tap her on the butt with the map and convince her we should hurry to make it to our class on time. We change into our cult robes and leave our shoes behind in the room. For a retreat, the carpet seems an unlikely choice. For starters, it’s dirty; orange flowers in mid-bloom try their best to conceal spilled tea, and there are pieces of gravel from outside embedded in the fibers.

The movie The Shining flashes into my mind. Together we walk side by side, peering at every door’s number, unable to find room 202 for the treatment.

“Obviously, it’s the only unmarked room,” she says. Smoke curls from underneath the door, alerting us to a possible treatment.

“Perfect, the place is burning down before we get our money’s worth.”

“Maybe they put peyote in the water,” she says.

The door swings open. A woman with a shaved head and orange lipstick invites us to fill out a waiver. Just in case,” she says.

“Ow,” I say as she walks behind me and pokes at the back of my head with something metal.

“Sorry,” she says. “You are very tight. I might recommend you see Julio—he is wonderful with cranial massages, letting out stuck associations.”

“Not for us,” I say, grabbing Lulu by the wrist.

“For the road,” Lulu says, grabbing two more glasses of water.

Drenched in sweat, we awaken on the bed in our room, our hands clasped together. I slept solidly, dreamlessly. One. Two. Three. I count the crowdedness of my heartbeats—it seems there are more than I need. I look for my phone and then remember our phones were confiscated—so we would be ready to do the real work, words I kept hearing from everyone at the retreat.

I try to look at Lulu, but her skin seems too bright to stare at, each cubic square (inch?) fashioned out of diamonds. I ask her, “Legally they can’t take our phones, right?” She stares as if she forgot how to blink. Did they chase us with a butterfly net and deposit us in our room with the yellow wallpaper? Minutes become hours and then return to minutes. Lulu’s energy is focused on her notebook again.

A groaning can be heard from anywhere or everywhere. A woman’s voice calling, calling, calling.

“Can you hear that?’ I ask Lulu, but she is absorbed in her locket.

“Aaahhhh, aagggh,” repeats from the vents.

“Aren’t you worried? It sounds like Bertha Mason.”

“Who?”

I snap. “You studied English, for God’s sake. How are you unfamiliar with all the fundamental literary greats? Bertha Mason—the former wife from Jane Eyre?”

“It’s not Jeopardy, for God’s sake.”

The groaning continues, until I can pinpoint that it is wafting up from the grates. The part of me that loves storytelling imagines that it could be the basis for a novel. The more self-protective part of me wonders if we should continue staying at the lodge.

“I’m sorry, weirdo.” I look up from the floor, noticing the overhead lights shining down on Lulu’s head—the hollows under her eyes are magnified in a way that seems old for her age. I dust the lint off my hands and sit next to her on the bed. “Anything good?” I ask, pointing to open notebook.

“It’s private,” she says, glaring at me.

I pour myself a glass of water from the sweating carafe on the nightstand but only feel thirstier with each sip. I ask if she is interested in taking another class.

“You’re kind of codependent,” she says. A proverbial slap rings through my ears. Disgusted with Lulu and myself, I decide to take a solo walk and get a feel for the property. I grab the old-fashioned room key and make my way down the hallway. The carpet’s orange flowers look larger, and I swear that the pistils are waving at me like a field of angry tongues.

Around and around, I walk the hallway. Each time I turn the corner I end up right where I began. Frightened, I sit down on the floor, legs crossed in front of me, and cry.

“Newbie, huh?” A man of sixty or sixty-five bends down next to me. He exudes gentleness, but his teeth look sharp.

“Slow down on the water,” he says. “I can confirm we’re being drugged. Of course, it will help you do the work.” We knowingly laugh.

Unsurprisingly, he tells me he has been haunted by nightmares. His granddaughter surprised him with the trip. “And how did you get mixed up here, out of all the gin joints?” he asks, then shakes his head. “Ah—none of my business.”

He tells me that he is certain that he wouldn’t have lost every one of his previous wives if he didn’t vacillate between vivid dreams, snoring, and nocturnal strolls.

“So, you’re a modern-day Lothario?”

He laughs, showing me again the sharpness of his teeth. “The worst were the pickles!” he says. He tells me his previous wives would find him making middle-of-the-night turkey sandwiches or eating pickles. Asleep with bedhead and night sleep crusted over his eyelashes. He pats his slightly protuberant belly. I think of a cat who has gorged itself on a bowl of fresh cream.

“Parasomnia,” I yell out. I want his approval, though I don’t know why.

“Damn straight, girl. Pro tip,” he says, handing me a card out of his robe’s pocket.

Replacement Therapy. Floor 12B. Expensive paper stock, embossed with gold font.

“Changed my life, if you can afford it.” He winks at me. I watch him walk away, whistling.

I trace 12B with my pointer finger.

Clutching the card in my hand, I walk to the front desk, this time not bothering to hop over the orange flowers. What would it feel like to have things change? When I get to the front desk, I see that there is a small sign that says closed, posted behind the wall. Before I can ring the bell, an attendant comes over. “We’re closed,” she says.

“But I was invited to try this,” I say.

I am shocked when she grabs it from my fingers. “Not for you,” she says, ripping it up. She walks behind the desk and grabs a pamphlet, circling lectures she thinks I might like in pink highlighter. I explain that I heard it was life changing. “It’s expensive, and you have to be vetted,” she says, pivoting away from me.

I hate this place, I think. The governance. The arrogance. The apparent drugging. I walk back to the room, ready for an argument with Lulu. I open the door and see that she has small trays of food and two plates lined up on the bed. “I hope you like Indian,” she says.

After two bowls of fragrant chicken curry, I launch into my story.

“Actually, I was hoping to tell you about it,” she says. She opens and closes her locket. “I have not been totally honest—I have been here at least a hundred times,” she says.

“What?” I ask.

“I have something to share with you that could change your life. It’s my invention. It would be my treat.” Words like choosing dreams, blood tests and the implantation waterfall out of her mouth.

Breathless, I launch myself off the bed and walk over to the sliding patio doors. A succulent garden is planted with native plants. Their spiky exteriors seem less daunting than Lulu. I feel her behind me even though I didn’t hear any footsteps.

“Can I show you something?” she says, hovering right into my space. She removes the locket from her neck and places it in my palm. “Meet my daughter. Dani. She was three.”

“Is this a joke?” I look at the photo: same blond hair. Same perfect nose.

“I wish. Because I lost her.” Lulu digs her nails into my arm.

“She ran away?”

“No,” she says. “I’ll explain what happened later.”

“How did you have time for a kid? You were in college recently.”

She turns to me, squares her shoulders and says, “I wasn’t very honest with you. I’m older than you think, I just have good skin.” She pats her cheekbones.

“But your nightmare of the woman on the ice—”

“Well, the water part was correct.”

“So, all this … What for?”

Angry, I walk back inside the room and start throwing my belongings into my open suitcase.

“I can help you,” she says. I feel her breath on the back of my neck, smell her strawberry shampoo. She’s a stranger to me, I think.

Lulu jumps in front of the door as I wheel my suitcase out of the room.

The timer on the room’s clock chimes, alerting us that we have new room messages. They can wait. I look behind at the yellow wallpaper. All these little clues that are now so obvious: her privacy issues. The way she didn’t understand obvious references.

“Do you even have an English degree?”

Her cheeks redden. How stupid I was! I feel overwhelmed with wanting to run over her foot with the suitcase’s wheels. Leave track marks across her body.

“Just give me a minute to change your mind. And if you still don’t believe me, then go. Never talk to me again.” Her hand on my shoulder feels so heavy that I turn around.

She hands me her journal, the one that I thought was filled with ordinary secrets: crushes, nightmares etc. What I don’t expect to find are drawings on the technical level expected of an architect or engineer.

“What are these?” We sit side-by-side on the bed; my curiosity outweighs my disgust. Drawings of people lying down, attached to overhead tubes with images of faces, hearts and monsters. Cross-sections of people’s brains, nozzles, and mathematical coding. I flip through to the end of her journal, wondering if Lulu is an evil genius.

“Look at me,” she says. “You’re in hell with your nightmares and so was I, before…What if there was a cure? Would you be interested?”

Nauseated, I open a package of crackers that came with the meal she brought us.

“Do you understand? I did it! I mean, it’s not been FDA-approved yet, sure, but it works.” Her eyes are wild, a high color on her cheeks. I should stop her rambling but aside from feeling betrayed, I am curious. Maybe things happen for a reason after all.

I let her take hold of my arm, watch her apparent expertise in navigating the hallway. No silly laughing. No disorientation. I question if she ever really drank the spa water or if that was just another way to lure me in.

“You’ll see,” she says. We approach a large, gilt-framed picture of a mermaid, an unusual choice for the desert. She holds up her pointer finger and uses an old metal key to unlock a groove in the woman’s hair. A rumbling occurs and the entire painting shifts; behind it is a staircase.

“Let me show you,” she says. After descending thirty steps, we are in a laboratory. Everything is white. The floors. The walls. The researchers’ outfits.

“I want you to meet someone who benefited greatly from my pursuits.”

The avuncular guy who gave me the card comes over. No robe, but white clothes, nonetheless. “Good to see you again, kid.” He shakes my hand and apologizes that he came on a little strong.

“You almost spoiled everything, Greg,” Lulu says. He is dismissed but seems nonplussed. An angelic smile never leaves his face; she is his queen.

“It really works,” he calls after us.

Lulu, if that is even her real name, brings me into a small interior room with no windows. There are three beds in a row, occupied by sleeping bodies. All the subjects are peacefully asleep, a tangle of tubes crisscrossing over and around their bodies. Above each person’s head is a strong medical light; attached to the crown of each head is a plastic arm. The pictures over the subjects’ heads seem to be what is being piped into the strange wires. I am reminded of the feeder on my juicer back home.

I approach the bed closest to me: a younger woman, pale face, no lines.

“Is she dead?” I ask.

Lulu pulls me away from the bed. “Hush. They are so fortunate. Her worries are gone,” she says. “Music please,” she yells out, and the sweetest lullaby comes through the ceiling’s speakers. Below the surface is a discordant tone. It gives me shivers.

I follow her to another room that feels more normal, less clinical. A pink and yellow wallpapered room, unusual for a lab. There are two white pleather couches. Seeing my distaste, she says, “Small budget for décor.” She makes odd fidgety movements, jumping from one foot to the other. She busies herself making coffee and adds a few shots of Kahlua. I wonder if she is manic.

After she makes our coffees she smiles at me, switching over to play the part of Lulu, dear friend. Papers are spread across the small side table, with more graphs and photos.

“What is this place?”

“Darling, this is where dreams literally come true.” She taps the top part of the page. I lean in closer, careful not to spill my coffee, and see the words Dream Replacement Lab.

“Don’t you trust me?” says Lulu. Her pupils have bloomed so big that her eye color is almost overtaken by black. She hands over her booklet. Microscopic handwriting fills the pages. The drawings and codes make no sense. The final page has a humble envelope stuffed with pictures. She nods that it is OK for me look at the contents. Picture after picture of her daughter.

“She was like you. Inquisitive. Do you know why she died? Of course, you don’t. But I am sure you imagine some childhood illness, something unpreventable. It wasn’t.”

 I bite my lip, wondering what she plans on telling me. It is apparent how much she adored Dani.

“How did she die?” I ask.

“She drowned. But it was odd, because she was already three years old. Bath time was important in our household. I spoiled her, bath beads or bombs for each time. Part of the ritual, aside from the fluorescent tub toys, was that she loved Skittles. Only red ones.”

Lulu places her hands over mine. “Do you understand?” she asks.

I do not.

“You probably think I spoiled her; I did. But she believed the Skittles let her see in the dark, all the monsters I could never kiss away.” Sickened, I realize the ending, but Lulu wants me to hear the rest. I try to put my hands over my ears, but sheholds them tight in her own.“I left her for only a minute—it was a small house. After rifling through the pantry, I remembered the Skittles were in the trunk of my car.”

“Stop,” I say.

She barrels on. “The car was locked, so I had to run back inside, get the keys, grab the Skittles. It would have been OK, but then I accidentally let the door close, and I was locked out of the house. By the time I broke through the window, using some extra bricks from our walkway repair, she had drowned. My floating blue baby.

“Have you tried doing CPR on a baby? It is not the same as what they teach you in the courses.” Tears stream down her cheeks.

“Sophia, that was the worst thing that has ever happened to me and ever will. Awake I was tortured, replaying every wrong move. Matthew, my husband, never stopped blaming me for what I did. At night, was worse. In my nightmares, Dani would follow me, leaving damp prints on my clothes. Carpets would turn into rivers, plastic starfish shooting down my watery floor. And every moment, she would ask for more red Skittles. Please, oh please.”

An animalistic sound escapes from my mouth. I hate Lulu for her mistake, even if it wasn’t an intentional act.

“Until I designed the dream replacement procedure, every sleeping moment was a testament to my poor choices,” she says.

I allow her to show me the machinery. It is very quiet, except for one lone nurse checking the patient’s vitals.

“Each one is in a medical coma for a week.”

I gasp.

“To stabilize, silly. I have successfully treated ten patients already. Twelve if you count Greg and me.” Most of my questions she effectively dodges, such as costs for the treatment, funders, bad side effects. “You worry too much.” Lulu walks back to her desk and hands me a present with a red bow. I tear through the wrapping and see there is an old-fashioned key.

“It opens nothing, of course.” She grabs it from my hands. “Congratulations are in in order,” she says, nabbing a bottle of champagne from the staff kitchen.

After three glasses, she tells me I am perfect, I can be fixed. Bubbles fly out of my nose. No one has ever used the word perfect in describing me. Notations are made of my weight and height. No known allergies and low blood pressure have already been considered—the hazards of sharing during the time we were just friends.

“Is Dr. Clinton involved in this too?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says.

What might scare another person, being in a chemical sleep, delights me; I will be floating in a liminal state, slowly being introduced to new dreams and granted freedom from my terrors.

“What did you decide?” Lulu asks.

“If I can really be helped, then yes!”

 Lulu hugs me. “Then I’ll see you on the other side.” She is proud of me.

The nurse measures the circumference of my head and places spiky metal disks on my crown. I think of the metal instrument that poked me when I had the scalp assessment in the spa. I try and say “No, I changed my mind—”

The nurse pricks my vein with a needle, and a slow warm burn invades my body. “Have a safe journey,” Lulu says.

How quick is the descent of madness? Is it a steady decline, like taking a spiral staircase down in the middle of the night, a precarious heel-toe balance while you cling to the railing? Or is it faster? Maybe it happens at the pace of a misstep, like tripping over a log while hiking, the unreal moment before you land and hear the crunch of bone, your femur head exposed.

In this space, Paula doesn’t exist anymore. Twilight filters through the plate glass windows, encircling everything in a cinematic glow. A little girl, wet from a bath and wrapped in an oversized pink towel, follows me. “Mama,” she says. She loops her arms around my knees.

I bend down to her small size and tell her, “We don’t belong together; you’ve made a mistake.” She beats her fists on the floor and cries. I try walking away, placing my hand on the metal doorknob. An electric current rips through my head. Is this a sick joke? Memories are hazy— perhaps I drank too much champagne? But why was I drinking champagne? I can’t afford champagne on what they pay me! The little girl screams again—she asks for Skittles. Only red. Something is very wrong. “I don’t like kids,” I say, hoping that she will leave me alone. She is nothing to me.

“Bad mommy,” she says.

Weak, I sit on the dusty rose couch. Wasn’t I on vacation? A retreat? I walk into the kitchen, looking for a coffee maker; maybe caffeine will clear out the brain fogginess. The child runs after me, asking if we can read a book together, the one about the three dinosaurs that want to learn to ski. This confirms it, people should not be so lazy with the adage It takes a village to raise a kid. It does not: just the mother. And I am not her mother.

Lounging on the couch, my tongue feels too big for my mouth. Dried out. There is no water left in my glass and the kitchen taps are broken.

The little girl has changed into a blue dress with ribbons. She sits down next to me, opens her little palm and offers me those red Skittles she was begging for when we first met. “What the hell,” I say, chewing through candies, tasting only ashes.

“You said a bad word,” she says, scrunching her face up in anger.

“I’ll read to you,” I say. The book magically appears in my lap.

“Welcome back,” I hear, watching the fluorescent lights overhead. My head feels fuzzy. I don’t trust that I can safely get up from the bed without tripping over my feet. I am in the clinic. I am alone. The bars are pulled up around my bed—I wonder if it is for my own protection or theirs.

“Hello!” I call out. “I’m ready to leave.” Lulu floats over to the bed in an oversize orange dress, her hair slicked back and held in place with a pair of chopsticks,

“Not so fast, girl,” she says, pushing down my shoulders, letting me know she can use more force if she wishes.

Her face seems altered in a way that I don’t recognize. It’s her lack of makeup—it makes sense now that she is older. Her face is pale because she’s not wearing blush.

“What the hell?” I say. “I thought you were replacing my nightmare with something pleasant. But I seem to have the ghost of your daughter.”

She looks at me as if I am stupid, not understanding the point of the exercise.

“I pegged you as being more maternal, my friend, but you’re awful at this. When a kid cries or says mama that’s your cue. You act the freaking part.”

I try to lift myself off the hospital bed, but my left hand is surrounded by metal. With horror, I understand that I am handcuffed to the bed. What could I have done wrong to be treated like a criminal? I think back to my keys, wishing for the skeleton key I recently acquired.

I look at the picture across from the bed and want to scream. It is a picture of a kitten curled around its mother. The caption says Always Dream Big.

As if she can read my thoughts, she tells me that I need to be prepared for lots of training now that I have a daughter.

“I do not,” I say, trying to shake my hands free.

“But you do. You will submit. Your life can be pleasant, even happy, if you do what you are told.”

“Why me?” I ask.

“Because I am too close to the situation. You aren’t related; it will be easier for you to bear.”

I scream at her, and she leans over and says, “Be a good girl now.” I realize that I am dealing with someone with the same psychological profile as Paula.

The nurse comes over and pulls another long needle off the tray. Wait, I try to say, but I can feel the chemical burn taking me down into a dream…down a rabbit hole I go.

***

The oven dings, letting me know that the chocolate ganache cake is ready. It is her eighteenth birthday today.

“Buttercream?” asks Dani.

“Absolutely,” I say.

For the past fifteen years, I have raised Lulu’s daughter in my dreams. At first, I refused; after all, she wasn’t mine. She wasn’t real. I can tell you, the funders of the lab, that what Lulu did is extraordinary. When I wasn’t asleep and forced to raise her virtual dead child, then the waking hours were mine. True, I never left the laboratory, but she supplied me with enough Vitamin D pills, heat lamps, pizza every Friday, that eventually I didn’t notice what was taken. The sunshine. Freedom. Jumping into the ocean, even if it was cold.

“Are you OK, Mom?” she asks me.

I nod my head in return, focusing on how beautiful she is, how her hair curves in waves around her thin shoulders despite being a hologram blend.

“You look sad,” she tells me, offering me a bite of the cake.

Sugar crystals melt on my tongue, but in this world, all the food tastes like ashes. I can’t tell her that after today I will never see her again. If I could stay suspended in this liminal space between dreaming and waking, I would be thrilled. Instead, the dream lab has been suspended until further notice because of a few ethical violations. The forced stop date of the medical experiment coincides with Dani’s birthday.

Each time I awaken, materializing back into real life, I am required to write copious notes about Dani’s development and estimate her weight and height. Lulu never had the courage to look through the cameras attached to my skull, preferring to just listen in with the microphone. Her loss. I am told that there will be a sizable amount of money left for me, so that I don’t have to worry about gainful employment. My hands reach over and clasp Dani’s hands, memorizing each lifeline, breathing in her honeysuckle scent.

“Countdown to three, two, one,” crackles in my ear.

“Awaken,” I hear as I let go, my hands drifting away from Dani’s. Her fingers are like puffs of air in my own, disassembling until I feel nothing.

My eyes resist opening. My lips curl into a fierce snarl, refusing to adapt to my new normal of never seeing her again. My daughter. Lights flash in my eyes, testing the dilatory function of my pupils.

All at once, the bed lowers and the bars on each side come down. Lulu stands there, frowning as I make no motion to get up.

 I have returned but am already gone, tripping in the recesses of my mind with Dani as we talk about existentialism. She asks me if I believe that in such a bleak existence, anything really matters.

“We matter,” I say, acknowledging the glitch in the system: Lulu and the team told me I would have no memories of my medicalized time; it would be erased. I smile. They were wrong.



BIO

Noelle Shoemate has taken writing classes at NYU, Gotham, Catapult and the New School. She holds a master’s degree in clinical counseling; her therapeutic background informs her writing. Her work is published in Bellingham Review, The Courtship of Winds, ellipsis… literature and art, Five on the Fifth, Night Picnic, Packingtown Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, The Thieving Magpie, and Umbrella Factory.








Sort of Maybe Famous

by Michael Loyd Gray



     It had rained again but now it was clear and waning sunlight filtered through gaps in Tribeca’s old brick buildings. Water pooled on streets and red, green, and yellow from stoplights reflected in the pools. After coffee in a noisy café, I walked past industrial warehouses turned into ritzy lofts for hipsters, actors, artists — wannabes. I was probably as far culturally from my Beaver Island, a lonely speck in Lake Michigan, as one could be. From Tribeca, everything west, beginning with Jersey, was The Great Unknown.

      I found the little art gallery sandwiched among boutiques along the Hudson River. I’d promised to see Maggie’s work, her painting. Next to the gallery, a lanky young man about my age with a shock of black hair dangling over his eyes swept the sidewalk in front of a wine bar. He had to sweep his hair back to see the walk.

     A small sign above the door said Adolfo’s. There were tables and chairs piled together in a tangled mess. Mist that had settled among the taller buildings and over the river had dissolved. A few clouds lingered and the sun was trapped behind them. The street was cast in half-light, an amber tinge.

     It was a few minutes before the gallery opened and I watched the man sweep. He looked up at me. I smiled and he hesitated but smiled, too.

     “Waiting on the gallery,” I said, pointing to its door.

     “They’re always a little late.”

     “I see.”

     “Just so you know.”

     “Well, I have time. It looks like a fine day if the clouds lift.”

     He glanced up, as if remembering there was a sky.

     “More rain coming, I heard.”

     I took another look up.

     “Maybe so.”

     “Are you a friend of Walter and Stella?”

     I took that to mean the owners of the gallery.

     “That’s who owns it, the gallery?”

     “It is.”

     “I don’t know them. I just came to see a painting.”

     “Are you from around here?”

     “I’m from Michigan.”

     He stared at me a moment as if I’d announced I’d just rolled in off the boat from Oz.

     “You came from Michigan to see a painting?”

     “Not exactly. But while I’m here, I’ll look at the painting.”

     “Are you an art dealer?”

     “I’m not, no. Not much call for that where I’m from.”

    “But you’re here to see a painting, even though you’re not a buyer?”

    “Sounds kind of odd, I admit.”

    “Jesus – that’s a long way for a painting.”

    “I reckon so.”

    “Just one?”

     “But I know her — the artist.”

     “Somebody famous?”

     “I don’t know exactly.”

     He leaned his broom against a table.

     “You know her but don’t know if she’s famous?”

     “I don’t know how fame works in the art world.”

     He half-smirked but converted it to a smile.

     “If you’re famous in Tribeca, then you’re famous everywhere.”

     “That sounds about right, I suppose. Lots of famous people around here, I heard at the hotel.”

     His face brightened.

     “Fame is Tribeca. Robert DeNiro was here last night, in the bar.”

     “Is that right? Imagine that.”

     “I’ve seen Mick Jagger here, too.”

     “Did you meet him?”

     “Yeah, for sure. He’s a nice guy. Friendly as you please.”

     “Best frontman in rock,” I said. “And DeNiro just drops in casual-like?”

     “He lives nearby. This is his neighborhood, man.”

     “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

     “What’s your name.?”

     “Davis Underwood.”

     I offered my hand. His grip was firm. I guess I expected limp from a hipster, if that’s what he was. I wasn’t exactly sure what qualified as hipster. I was pretty sure there weren’t any on Beaver Island.

     “I’m Brody,” he said. “Brody Dalton.”

     “You own the bar, Brody?”

     “Oh, hell no. I couldn’t afford this place. This is Tribeca, you know. I’m the manager.”

     “Well, we all start someplace.”

     “And in Tribeca, if you aren’t rich, that’s often where you stay – at the start.”

     “I hear you. But dreams are still free.”

     “I’ll take that under advisement,” Brody said, grinning.

     I glanced at the gallery door and then my watch.

     “Sometimes Walter and Stella are more than just a little late,” Brody said. “They were in the bar last night, too. They stayed late.”

     “I get the picture.” I pointed at the tangle of chairs and tables. “You want some help with all that?”

     He looked at the pile and then me, skeptically.

     “Seriously?”

     “I’m not afraid to work, Brody.”

     “Is that some kind of Michigan slogan?”

     “No, that’s just how I roll, I guess.”

     “I think you’re a long way from home, Davis.”

     “Don’t I know it.”

     “Okay,” he said, after sizing up the tangled pile again. “Help me and I’ll give you a free beer. Maybe two.”

     “Guinness?”

     “Any kind you want, my friend.”

     “What’s the second beer depend on?”

     “How good the conversation is.”

     “Sounds about right.”

     After we set up the chairs and tables, we sat at the bar, the door locked behind us. Brody drank coffee and I sipped a Guinness. His staff would drift in soon. It was drinking during the day, in a bar, but I didn’t consider it day drinking. I had a purpose. Places to be and people to see. But a couple days to kill before I did business with Maggie’s foundation. She said I merited a few days off to see the sights. I wasn’t complaining about it.

     I told him the whole story, even the prison part.

     “Well, shit, Davis — that’s some tale alright. A year in the slammer and you weren’t even guilty. I can’t imagine it.”

     “You can’t. Trust me.”

     “So, this rich Maggie painter lady now wants you to give a talk at her charity’s board meeting?”

     “On Friday. I’m supposed to persuade them to help more average folks like me get back on their feet.”

     “You’re the poster boy.”

     I looked away.

     “I reckon I am at that.”

     “Can you pull it off?”

      I shrugged.

     “A man can only do his best and let the cards fall.”

     “More midwestern stoicism, Davis?

     “Common sense, I reckon. So, who owns this place? A guy named Adolfo?”

     “A guy named Terrence. Your basic rich Manhattan asshole. He owns several restaurants, too. One’s over by The Odeon.”

     “What’s the Odeon?”

     “A famous restaurant.”

     “I see. Everything around here seems to be famous.”

     “You’re catching on, my friend.”

     “And this asshole owner, he’s friends with DeNiro?”

     “Thick as thieves.”

     “How would he feel about these free beers?”

     “He doesn’t know what goes on in his bar day to day. He just owns it. Two different things for rich people.”

     “I reckon so,” I said, hoisting my Guinness.

     “Besides – you worked for the beers, right?”

     “I’d like to think I did, yeah.”

     “Maybe you’ll see DeNiro, if you come around at night.”

     “Think so?”

     “If he’s here, I’ll introduce you.”

     “He’d be okay with that?”

     “Within limits.”

     “What limits?”

     “It all depends. It’s a tricky business, rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. There are rules — etiquette.”

     “I can just imagine.”

     “Maybe not, Davis.”

     “You’re probably right.”

     “You ever meet anybody famous?”

     “Not a one. Does Maggie count?”

     He mulled it.

     “Well, she has a painting in a good gallery. And she runs that foundation. And she’s rich. She’s maybe low-level famous. More rich than famous. No doubt she knows famous people because she’s rich. So, by association, sort of maybe famous.”

     “That’s a big distinction?”

     “This is Tribeca, Davis, the hip center of the Manhattan universe. There’s a pecking order to the fame and fortune.”

     “It’s like a whole other planet.”

     “Most days, yeah, it is. For sure.”

     A couple of young, pretty women arrived — servers to get the bar ready to open. Cuban American women, Brody said, with long glossy black hair pulled into dangling ponytails that swished like a horse’s tail swatting flies. They glanced at me at the bar with Brody and they smiled several times.

     “Friendly ladies,” I said.

     “They think you might be somebody.”

     “Like who?”

     He shrugged.

     “They don’t know. But they don’t want to miss out, just in case.”

     “What kind of famous do they think I could be?”

     He studied my face a few seconds.

     “Maybe an actor whose name they forget but the face seems familiar. You do kind of look like Edward Burns.”

       I had to think who that was.

     “Has he been in here?”

     “Probably. We get our share of actors.”

     “Edward Burns,” I said, finally remembering Saving Private Ryan. “Do you think so?”

     He studied my face.

     “Close enough, Davis. People see what they want to see.”

     The two servers glanced at me again and one said something to the other and they smiled and giggled.

     “Do they think I might be Edward Burns?”

     “Maybe. I have no idea what those two tamales think sometimes, if you get my drift. But they know you’re here before we open, drinking with me. So, they suspect you might be somebody.”

     “They’ll be disappointed.”

     “That’s not how to look at it, Davis. I won’t tell them who you are. I’ll keep it mysterious in case you come back when we open. See how that works?”

     I nodded.

     “But the truth comes out eventually.”

     “Truth has nothing to do with it.”

     “Why not?”

     “First off, people come to Tribeca – Manhattan in general — and get to know famous people, rich people, and that association can open doors and then for various reasons, they might become famous, too.”

     “You see any of that in my future, Brody?”

     “Fame? You never know. You want fame, you’ve come to the right place.”

     I finished my Guinness.

     “But what if everybody became famous?”

     “Is that a problem?”

     “Who would do the work around here?”

     “That’s easy to fix, Davis. There are always new non-famous people coming in to work who hope they move up to famous.”

     “Kind of like a cycle.”

     “Yeah, a cycle alright. The fame cycle.”

     I got up to go and Brody let me out front.

     “Maybe I’ll see you later, Brody.”

     “Remember – you too might become famous. But it’s a major commitment.”

     “Sounds like it, for sure.”

     “Lots of work and upkeep, my friend. High maintenance.”

     “Kind of like a foreign sports car,” I said on the way out the door.

     “Exactly. So, see you tonight – Ed Burns?”

     “Well, you just never know.”

     “Don’t overthink it,” he said. “Go with the flow.”

     “Be whoever I want to be, you mean?”

     “Why not? Be Edward Burns, if that works for you. He’s probably off making a film somewhere. Life’s a costume party, isn’t it?”

     “Sometimes, yeah, it seems that way. For sure.”

     “Somebody once said you are who you pretend to be.”

     “Somebody famous, no doubt.”

     “Of course.”

     One of the Cuban gals glanced my way and winked.

     “I think Brasilia like you,” he said

     “Brasilia? That’s really her name?”

     “It is now. She’s ready in case she gets famous for something.”

     “Like what?’

     “Whatever comes along.”

     “Seems pretty random.”

     “Yeah, but in Tribeca, you got to be ready to catch the train when it pulls up.”

     “I see,” I said, nodding. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, Brody.”

     “I don’t doubt it.”

     After he closed the door, I checked the gallery next door. It had still not opened. Walter and Stella must have had a hard a night working at being famous. I looked up at dark clouds drifting in. Brody was probably right about the rain. I headed back to my hotel, stopping for a moment to appreciate Adolfo’s patio tables and chairs in their neat even rows. We’d done a good job of it.

     I glanced at the sky. The clouds had not lifted. If anything, they were darker, lower, and I figured a good hard rain was about to fall. I stopped for coffee in a crowded cafe. The windows had fogged over and people walking by were ghostly blurs. I was the only one sitting alone at a table. I looked around the café and listened to the simmering hum of voices. It was like being inside a beehive with more bees arriving all the time.

     A thirtyish woman, pretty, straw blond hair under a blue beret, sat down at a table next to mine. She sipped her coffee and glanced my way several times, once smiling, but I chalked that up to public etiquette, perhaps. Civility. We made eye contact again and I returned her smile.

     “I know I should know who you are,” she said, leaning into the aisle toward me.

     “You should? Why is that?”

     But I said it in a pleasant voice and remembered to smile again. She pivoted her chair toward me.

     “You probably get this a lot — people recognizing you when you’re just out minding your own business and all.”

     “Not as much as you might think.”

     “Really? I thought I recognized you right off.”

     “Did you?”

     “Well, not at the very first. I had to sneak a couple looks, of course. I hope you don’t mind.”

     “Not at all. It’s perfectly fine.”

    “You’re probably used to it all by now,” she said. “It must happen all the time.”

     I shook my head slowly and sipped my coffee.

     “I can’t say it does, to be honest.”

     “You’re just being modest.”

     “That’s me – modest.”

     “But of course, you must be proud of your work.”

     “Of course.” 

     She glanced around at other tables, the people deep into lively conversations. I felt guilt about letting this one go on. It had gotten away from me at the very start.

     “I’m Allison, by the way,” she said, and we shook hands. Hers was pink and warm. She wasn’t half bad to look at and her smile lit up the room.

     “I guess I don’t need an introduction,” I said, hoping she didn’t notice me wincing when I said it.

     “The thing is,” she said, lowering her voice, “I know your face from movies but not the name — sorry about that. I really do apologize.”

     “No need.” I patted her hand softly and she looked thrilled. “Trust me, Allison — I’m used to people not knowing who I am.”

     “It must drive you crazy — people knowing your face but not your name.”

     “Edward Burns,” I said confidently.

     Who was I to ruin her fantasy? She looked very pleased.

     “Can I call you Ed?”

     “Everybody does.”

     “Does anyone call you Eddie?”

     “My mother – when she was mad at me.”

     “Now she’s proud of you, of course.”

     “She passed away.”

     “Oh, Ed – I’m so sorry.”

     “That’s okay. Thanks. It was a long time ago.” I finished my coffee and smiled at her. “But now, I really have to run, although it was very nice to meet you, Allison.”

    “Likewise, Ed. Are you off to some movie location around here?”

     “No, no – nothing like that.” I tied to think of some excuse to leave that didn’t seem like I was just bolting. “I’m meeting Bob DeNiro for a drink.”

     “Really? Wow – Robert DeNiro. Where?”

     “At his place. It’s not far.” I stood. “And I better not be late – we can’t be standing up DeNiro, you know.”

     “Of course not,” she said gravely.

     A young woman at a nearby table heard me say DeNiro and studied my face for a few seconds before falling back into her conversation. I gently squeezed Allison’s shoulder and left before she could ask for an autograph. I felt that coming. I didn’t want to have to make that choice. That would have been a defining moment, for sure. I knew that would have been a mistake.

     When I got back to the hotel, I ate fettucine alfredo in the restaurant before going upstairs to put on a clean shirt to go back to Adolfo’s. But instead, something changed inside me, and I looked out at the Manhattan skyline for a few minutes and decided I’d ha